doesn’
doesn’t it look tasty??? from the Papers…
Mmmmmmmmm, yum!!! Translated…
Every mother has a dish one cooks best, and meat sauce, it’s a plate that everybody can manage to make; stewing a pot of meat sauce, sticking it into the fridge, and you can take it out, to heat it up again and again, using it as a main dish, or a side, very convenient, and dad loved this dish very much too. We live close to grandma, and, grandma’s meat sauce already became a part of our lives now, comparing, the meat sauce made by my maternal grandmother, who lives in Taidong, we’d only had once chance a year to savor it.
When we were younger, every New Year’s or summertime, we’d mostly expected the trips, and, although the way there was usually boring and long, to the point of us, becoming drowsy in the car, but, we’d heard our parents talking in lowered voices all the way, along with the familiar sounds of the car engine running, we were filled, with this sense of satisfaction. The destination of our trips, naturally, my maternal grandmother’s house that we’d gone to once every single year and, what I’d loved seeing the most when we arrived, was my maternal grandparents, standing out from, by the red front door, smiling.
My eldest uncle and aunt would always take us out to eat, but I’d carried that expectation of getting the packed up meat sauces with the rice in our luggage. I’d recalled the summer I was six, my grandparents went abroad to visit their relatives, there was no one there to take care of my younger brother and I, and, I’d always wondered, what secrets were kept, by my grandmother’s cooking spatula. After many years, what we’d had for our meals, already forgotten, I’d only recalled that gentle gaze from grandma, as I worked, to finish that very last grain of rice in my bowl.
One year, my mom asked grandma to teach her to make the meat sauce, and dad, in the instructions of grandma, drove us all to a local marketplace, and that, was the first time I’d ever seen, such a huge bag worth of shallots, and stacks of vegetables. But, because of how young I was, I’d not thought about learning to cook from grandma, naturally, other than eating, what goes on in the kitchens, wasn’t related to me one bit; as for how that meat sauce served in the evening came to? I still had no clue, just knew, that amber-colored meat sauce had, invited me, to scoop up serving after serving, onto my rice inside my bowl, looking at the glows of the meats, the aroma entered into my mouth and nose, it was, a very amazing meal for the taste buds.
Several years ago, grandma moved to Kaohsiung, and we’d stopped taking the trips to Taidong every single year since, although mom tried making the meat sauce, but every time, because of skinning the red shallots was too difficult, she’d, given it up.
And now, as I’d gone out to dine, I’d ordered the meat sauce over rice, perhaps, it was, in an attempt, to recall, that sort of warmth, that closeness, to my childhood years.
So, there’s that food that became a symbol of your childhood, made by your grandmother, and, you’d tried to find the taste exactly like it, but you never could, because the food your grandma cooked was not just with the ingredients, but also, with her love for you, and, although your mom tried making it, it was still, NOT quite the same, because, nobody can duplicate that love that it took, to cook the foods like grandma did…