Culinary Daughter

You enter the kitchen not through a door, but between the old wooden butcher block and the ever-cold counter. My mom is standing at the stove, eyes frantically checking all the pots balanced around the flames. Warm gushes of spiced and seasoned air come flooding toward you, and you stand amazed at the bounties of meals all being prepared at once. In front of you, are three slick, white appliances: the fridge, which is continuously opened, the freezer, to hold everything we didn’t finish the night before, and the dishwasher, which is overflowing at every second, and never seems to be completely empty. My dad comes in from the patio, where the barbecue is. He is holding a tray of soft, tender ribs – nearly drowned in his “secret sauce”. Next to the ribs are beautiful ebony-striped pineapples that have been grilled with a little bit of “char”, as my dad likes to say. You move out of the way of the counter, so that he can put the meat and pineapple down, and next to you is yet another project of my mother’s. A bowl of cookie dough waits for the beeping sound of the oven so that it can be baked. You steal a finger full of cookie dough and lick it off with your tongue – the sweet presence of a little too much sugar greets the roof of your mouth.