bibimmyeon at noon, orange glinting off leafy glaze and window glimmer, halmoni sets the bowl before me, gloved, varicose hands sifting light and color: bone-white, the red gochu seeped through,…
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“And then it is another day and another, but I will not go on about this because no doubt you too have experienced time.” — Jenny Offill, Weather *** A…
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I weigh the pasta with a kitchen scale. I am trying to use up random leftovers from the back of the pantry: half a bag of penne, a handful of…
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I’ve always been a breakfast person, thanks to the delicious meals I ate growing up in Hong Kong. Sometimes, breakfast was a scallion pancake topped with a fried egg; other…
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In a corner on the floor next to our dining room table stands a plastic toolbox. It’s been there for years. It is kept closed, with a combination padlock securing…
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My parents had initially planned to arrive in Basel in mid-February, just after the birth of their 10th grandchild, but my father’s recovery from a pacemaker operation delayed their visit.…
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Deep in the recesses of our refrigerator is a cheap gallon-size plastic container emblazoned with an Italian tricolor crest and labeled “Caputo 00 flour”. You wouldn’t give it a second…
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“Do you think I haven’t seen what you just did?” My grandma said as I jumped, startled by her voice. I tried to ignore her as she approached the table,…
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Fork in hand, I mashed four thawed bananas—on the advice of the internet, I’d taken to freezing them in plastic bags—into about four ounces of applesauce. Vanilla extract entered next.…
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“I portioned that so we’d have enough for tomorrow,” John says. “It’s just a few pieces of broccoli.” “But we’re having salad tonight.” “It’s not enough,” I snap back. John…
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(or, How a Year with Covid-19 Shaped My Czech American Family, One Meal at a Time) It’s 7 a.m. on Tuesday morning; I’m sautéing onions and fresh spinach while calling…
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By then, of course, we’d done plenty in the name of ritual—our word, however off-target, for love. Ah, rushlit December, lamb shanks with the garden mint, heads bowed, may…
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My hands don’t look like my own. They remind me of my mother’s in her wedding photos. (Are wedding photos taken for the sole purpose of perfecting the image of…
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Alexander Chee is most recently the author of How To Write An Autobiographical Novel (Mariner Books, 2018), named a Best Book of 2018 by TIME, the Washington Post, Entertainment Weekly, NPR, Wired,…
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