Sleeping Cat (ca. 1970) by Inagaki Tomoo
status: in the kitchen.
K: to assure my survival in san francisco, my dad took it upon himself this summer to teach me over a dozen easy-but-delicious chinese dishes. staples like garlic-sauteed string beans, tomato and eggs, and mapo tofu are commonly referred to as jia chang cai (家常菜), which literally translates to “dishes common to the home.” i’m a decent cook who’s more or less successfully fed myself since sophomore year, but i’ve never been explicitly taught. like many second-generation asians, everything i know about chinese food has been gleaned over the years from watching my family in the kitchen.
from my grandmother’s legendary pork dumplings, which she made from scratch and sold to people at church for $200 a bag, to her sour-savory tu dou si’er (土豆絲; stir-fry shredded potatoes) and flaky cong you bing (葱油饼; scallion pancake), she made everything look easy. loose flour would come together effortlessly under her sturdy palms to form smooth, stretchy dough—a process i found infinitely more confounding and stressful with my dad looming over my shoulder like a disappointed military officer. he corrected my awkward form several times before finally taking the bowl away from me to demonstrate.
“you have to fold it, like this,” he said, clearly exasperated. “maybe your hand just isn’t big enough.”
“yeah, maybe,” i agreed, even though it wasn’t true. my grandmother’s hands are even smaller than mine.
cooking with my dad has, truly, been a humbling experience. according to him, i’m absent-minded and inefficient, my tofu slices aren’t even, my cubed potatoes could be bigger, i don’t know how to use the garlic chopper so that chunks don’t get stuck between the blades, and i never know when is appropriate to use the silicone or metal spatula, the solid or slotted spoon. what’s more, i don’t season things the proper amount or cook at the right temperatures (meat should be cooked on medium-low to retain moisture, aromatics on low-medium to prevent burning, and tubers on medium-high to ensure even heating), nor do i have a “sense” of how much soy sauce or chicken bullion to use.
“but exactly how much should i add for this dish?” i asked once, like a stupid person. the answer, as any sensible chinese person will tell you, is “however much is appropriate.” there’s a popular joke on the internet about asian cooking being devoid of measurements (you’re supposed to rely on PURE INSTINCT) but now i’m starting to realize it’s also devoid of really any concrete instruction at all. you just do it like this. you just chop it like that. i truly don’t think you can master chinese cooking by yourself—you have to be in the kitchen with someone you love and are slightly terrified of, either fumbling around and feeling indignant or standing quietly together at the stove, one person stirring a pot of simmering soup and the other holding a can of corn starch. as with everything native to my culture, communalism is mandatory.
chinese cuisine’s flagrant disregard for standardization has forced me to confer with the wisdom of my elders. they are helpless with google maps, microwaves, government paperwork, making small talk with american cashiers—but that is not their domain anyway. what they know about survival, sustenance, and satiation supersedes any worldly thing i could ever teach them. in both space and time, we have come to occupy different worlds. now that i’m putting my second foot out the door, i’ve stopped trying so hard to teach my parents about everything i wish they could grasp about my life, and have instead decided to learn from and about them.
predictably, cooking together has made me feel closer to my dad. i’m leaps better than when we first started at the beginning of the month, and now my dad even trusts me to make entire meals for us while he retires to his office to, i suppose, pray for his safety at dinnertime. he should keep praying—i love my old man but omg if he yells at me once more time, i’m doubling the amount of sichuan peppercorn in his you po mian (油泼面; hot oil noodles) and calling it a casualty of my “pure instinct.”
status: in my sister’s closet.
E: this month, i’ve taken a lot more of my older sister’s clothes. partly because i did not pack enough for sf weather, partly because i miss having access to an extra closet, as if they would protect me from the cold, cruel world. it’s our first time living together without our parents, and walking into her home—a two-bedroom house with sunny arched windows and a baby blue garage—is like returning to an unfamiliar past.
when we were kids, i’d make fun of her style. “you look like a grandma,” i’d say to her jandals. “you’re so mean and annoying,” she’d spat back. our parents rarely took her side—”your little sister’s still young,” my dad would say. “you don’t have to live with her again after you leave home.” to which i’d stick out my tongue and say “ha!” of course, the irony is the next day, she’d find me rummaging through her closet, putting her sandal strap through a loop (my shoe size quickly matched hers). i was a menace of a little sister, i know.
there almost existed an invisible tug-of-war between us, with the world as our referee. she’d save the best bite of chocolate for last and savor it as i’d question my own decision to eat mine first. i’d finish all my homework before dinner and watch TV in the living room, gloating over the fact that she had to stay up to study for an exam. every time our family moved into a new apartment, she’d let me pick the room or side of the room first. i’d choose the bigger one, yet always ended up regretting it. after she left for college, two years before i did, i’d sometimes sleep in her room, the smaller study with no windows, envying her better bed frame with the lighter wood.
between the two of us, she was the dancer, and i the watcher. in her new adult home, i’m clinging onto old childhood habits when i steal her sweatpants, waiting for her to get mad. only, she doesn’t. she rolls her eyes and sends me links to clothes she thinks i’d like. i sit on her beautiful linen couch, use her matcha hemp cleanser, and admire what she has filled her home with, realizing that it was never about the objects themselves, but always the way that it held her touch (though i’d never admit this to her face).
in the same louis gluck poem, there’s this line, “you were the gold sun on the horizon. i was the judgment, my shadow preceded me, not wavering but like a mold that would be used again.” in college, we grew into our own: i sought adventure, she sought stability. we didn’t understand each other’s decisions—how could we have diverged so far from the same household? when i got intermittent updates from her life, i harbored my judgments, pitting our differences against each other as we were used to doing.
somehow, this summer, we ended up in the same city, and i now believe, after one too many coffee runs, sample sales, rants about our parents, and the summer i turned pretty episodes together, we’re more similar than i made us out to be. perhaps my dad is wrong about all the fights we had back when—because underneath the kiddish pettiness, we still like living with each other.
beach music, cape may diamonds, blackberry stains, cold bowls of cubed watermelon, jalapeño hands, pomegranate juice, coloring books, linen shorts, sunburns, sails, fine paper goods.
K: i’m currently reading dune, which is very good so far. i don’t ever forget why i love big sprawling escapist novels, but it’s nice to be reminded all the same. some speed-round thoughts on this month’s recently read books…
lapvona - moshfegh deals in some new themes with lapvona, which wears the sheepskin of a historical novel set in medieval europe. in fact, i felt it was a rather apt commentary on the modern sins and follies of worshipping false gods.
conversations with friends - rooney’s style just may not be for me—i didn’t especially like her short story mr. salary either, and i find her characters inscrutable in an unsatisfying way. i feel bad about this, because rooney is popular with many young women and her writing ability is obviously good. i will maybe try one more (future) book of hers!
debt: the first 5,000 years - dense, erudite, and illuminating in its contrarian perspectives on social monetary relations and graeber’s original “human economy” concept, which he sets up as a precursor to chattel slavery. i would benefit from a second read, perhaps with a physical copy that i can mark up.
feline philosophy: cats and the meaning of life - something whimsical to celebrate amora turning three this month and also one year of successful cat ownership! here’s a rather touching quote that made me miss her:
“The mistake is the belief that that a good life is one that pursues an idea of the good. An idea here means a kind of vision, as in Plato. Having glimpsed the good, we spend our lives struggling to approach it. Cats do nothing of the kind, of course. Though they can see in the dark, scent and touch are more important in their lives. A good life is one they have felt and smelt, not a dim sighting of something far away.”
— John Gray, Feline Philosophy: Cats and the Meaning of Life
E: alas, mrs. dalloway was a perfect novel that held all of my favorite things in its palm. virginia woolf takes us through a single day in june in post-war london from the perspective of multiple characters. at its core, i think i loved it so much because i could see myself as mrs. dalloway—forty some years from now—living in a lively city, getting flowers for myself, reminiscing about everyone i’ve loved before and throwing a dinner party where i mull over how life didn’t exactly unravel the way i wanted it to, yet all the more alluring.
sometimes, when i’m outside, i catch myself making up stories for people. this is their fourth date, i guess based off how close their feet were under the table. so when virginia woolf writes, “but nothing is so strange when one is in love (and what was this except being in love?) as the complete indifference of other people,” and “the world wavered and quivered and threatened to burst into flames,” she speaks to an inner depth of my soul that aches for something i can hardly explain. life, i think, a sort that overflows.
i’m currently reading oscar wilde’s the picture of dorian gray and maggie nelson’s essay collection on freedom. i’m picking up liz tran’s newly published the karma of success next.
K: ebie, happy belated cancer season! from one water sign to another: what’s a normal amount for a girl to cry?
E: a quick google search revealed that women cry an average of 5.3 times a month, while men cry an average of 1.3 (source). and surprising to no one, the heaviest criers are young 18-24 year old women. well, let’s see… how many times did i cry this month? i sad/angry-cried after a particularly overwhelming day (1), during a mother-daughter flashback scene in barbie (2), when i was pms-ing and alex didn’t kiss me goodnight (3), when i couldn’t solve an lsat problem (4, 5) and in the car after my contact kept falling out (6). a pretty normal month for me, i’d say. the essence of girlhood is a healthy mix of repressed problems, love issues, and temporary frustration, all interspersed with a moving book/movie/scene of sorts. out of curiosity, i asked alex how many times he cried this month. “just the once,” he said. “on shrooms.”
E: kai-lin, i, like every other girl, have been swooning over dylan sprouse’s fairytale summer wedding. how has your dream wedding changed over the years?
K: as a little girl, the fantasy of organizing a good time for my friends was always far more absorbing than the complicated ordeal of romance. i knew i wanted green bridesmaid dresses, an early summer wedding, and creamy invitations with embossed lettering—but ironically gave little to no thought as to who i would actually be marrying. the person waiting for me at the end of the aisle was barely a smudge in my daydreams, an empty tuxedo. at best, he was uninteresting and, for all intents and purposes, replaceable with a floral arrangement. at worst, he was a source of immense anxiety. the idea that i would have to go live in a house with this man someday, loving and laboring for him forever, was irreconcilable with everything i knew about and wanted for myself.
obviously, things are different now. realizing that i didn’t have to marry a man resolved a lot of things; so did throwing lots and lots of dinner parties for our friends in college to scratch my hosting itch. my aesthetic tastes have not really changed, to be honest—i still like low necklines, expensive silks, bridal sapphires, lilies, rich chocolate cake—but in gaining a new appreciation for the institution of marriage, my feelings toward my dream wedding have softened. you could argue that i never really had a dream wedding at all, only a dream gathering—a stormy vision of beauty and drama with nothing sitting at the center. gone are the cheeky expectations of fanfare befitting a small kingdom princess. they’ve been replaced instead with more modest pleas for clear skies, fair weather, good wine, and my parents’ blessing.
mustard specializes in colorful home lockers. (this lowdown style in olive would make such a cute console or entrance shoe rack substitute.)
these ballerina satin flats, which kai-lin would pair with jeans, sunnies, and a ribbed tank.
oak + fort has cute summer dresses that are currently on sale. (ebie got this gingham one.)
upstate’s glassware collection, particularly the carafe style in fumé.
ebie’s newest go-to starbucks order, taken from her sister: iced americano with whipped cream. sweeter than espresso, cheaper than an oat milk latte. it does the trick!
Thanks for reading! Part collaborative writing experiment and part guilty-pleasure digital archive, My Brilliant Friend delivers thoughtful weekly dialogues on love, friendship, and culture to your inbox. You can subscribe below to receive new letters from us directly or visit us at mybrilliantfriend.substack.com.
My Brilliant Friend is co-written by Ebie Bao and Kai-Lin Wei.