writing exercise #3

"Eat more - it's good for your skin."

I passively absorbed a lot of these traditional Chinese medicine bits growing up, accepting a lot of it both without resistance and with some skepticism. And then my first job was at a collagen company, and I thought frequently about pork trotters. My parents had one of those stovetop pressure cookers, which must have been dedicated to making braised trotters because I don't remember them using it for anything else. We braised our trotters in soy sauce, both dark and light, shaoxin rice wine, and a blend of fragrant spices. The characteristic aroma makes me salivate on cue like one of Pavlov's dogs. I could barely stand to wait until the bowl of trotters were cool enough to handle before I picked one up to gnaw off the gelatinous skin. When it's perfectly cooked, it should slip right off and melt like jell-o on your tongue. After sucking every knuckle bone clean, my fingers would be sticky with collagen and my belly warm. But there's still all the braising liquid left. I drown the rest of my rice with it, thick and viscous, and shovel every grain into my mouth.

pc. Joyce

When I ventured out on my own, I couldn't justify a pressure cooker in my limited space. It would've made my occasional trotter cravings more accessible, but very little will stand between me and my pork cravings. Belly, ears, feet, stomach - sometimes a trip to an Asian grocery store is the only thing I can manage. A package of trotters can still be braised to gooey tenderness in a wok - it just takes twice as long. This particular day, I filled the kitchen with the aroma of my childhood home. And then I heard my roommate tiptoe out of her bedroom.

"What are ya making?"

She offered a handful of jujubes that she had in her pantry stash.

pc. Joyce

It was a sunny afternoon, and we set out two bowls of rice on the front porch. They're topped with a dollop of chili oil and a sprinkling of cilantro, a simple accompaniment to the intensely saucy bowl of trotters, served in the biggest bowl I owned. We ate in near silence, sighing between slurps, the trotter pieces disappearing in a fraction of the time as it took to braise.

I smiled into the sun, as I imagined my skin must've looked so good.

pc. Joyce