To anyone who knows us, it is no surprise that my son Hunter and I are a lot alike. Scarily so. Mama genes run deep. He has a lot of my mannerisms, empathetic nature and sassy personality. He sings and dances as he plays Legos exactly the way I sing and dance as I cook, side to side then a full body dance off with a lot of head nodding and lip syncing. His good boy/teacher’s pet personality at school and monster unleashed personality at home is exactly the way I was as a child. People never believed my Mom when she said I was naughty. Hunter’s love of sleep snuggling with legs thrown over or under someone else’s body or pillows makes us compatible nap partners. (My husband’s relief is palpable as he spent many a year gently rolling me off after I fell asleep cuddled up to him. You two radiate too much heat, he says.)
While these are likely genetic similarities, Hunter also has learned ones, too. He has picked up my flair for the dramatic response (“Oh, COME ON!”), my love of K-pop music (“Yeah! Let’s dance Mom! Bang Bang Bang!”) and my bougie ways (“Mom, let’s get Starbucks Bacon and Gruyère eggs! I love mobile ordering!”). He definitely has my palate, no matter how hard my husband tries to change it to a healthier version like his. Hunter and I love the bad foods especially for comfort…lots of butter, cheese, cured meats, chips, cookies, pasta, deep fried nearly anything and of course, packaged ramen!
Ramen is a staple in any Chinese-American household. Second to rice, if you don’t have ramen in your house you shouldn’t call yourself Chinese, which is ironic since ramen is a Japanese dish. As 1st generation born in the US and growing up in a working class immigrant family, we ate ramen for breakfast and midnight snacks. We bought cases of chicken flavored Nissin Demae Ramen 出前一丁. My cousins and I called it “Gong Tsai Mein” for cartoon noodles because of the little cartoon ramen chef on the front of the package. (We love this ramen so much that without fail someone in the family always buys 1 case as a Christmas White Elephant gift. That always gets snatched first.) I especially love ramen with a thin slice of tomato, 2 slices of ham, chili bamboo shoots, extra scallions and a dash of Tabasco. Ooooh, there go my taste buds…salivating. Those firm curly noodles swimming in hot, salty-MSG laden broth of yummy goodness are my comfort food go to.
During this Covid-19 situation, I need emotional comfort. Even with my rainbows and unicorns-let’s push forward personality, I feel helpless in my inability to aid others physically. I am not a medical professional who can ease suffering and save lives. I feel the financial stress of losing my job. I can see the worry on my husband’s forehead as we assess our finances and calculate how long we can manage on his salary and my unemployment without blowing through our savings. Birthday presents for family and friends have taken a back seat. I keep an I.O.U. account with Hunter for his rewards and completed chores. For every reward or chore, he receives 1 cotton ball. For every cup of cotton balls he saves, I note that I owe him a reward when I have a job again. Right now I owe him 1 reward. His wish list on Amazon has grown incredibly long with the number of items he’d like as a reward (last count 125).
I feel loss for a portion of my identity. I’ve been working all my life. It’s part of how I see myself in this world: family business worker, working professional, working mom. I feel the worry of being a stand-in teacher ensuring that Hunter doesn’t fall behind in educational milestones. I’m running through workbooks and games in hopes that I am not failing him. I miss being with my family and friends. The zoom meet ups, text messages and phone calls just aren’t enough. At any other time in my life, I would be noshing with them for gab sessions and hugging them to fill my soul. Even with my husband and son around, it can feel lonely. I need the comfort of my ladies. Without them in real life, I’ll settle for the comfort of food and imagining they are eating a meal and chatting with me as we often do.
With us staying home and my husband banning any take out food purchases, I’ve had to prepare 3 meals a day plus snacks for our family of 3. At first, I try to keep it relatively healthy. I haven’t cooked this much in like EVER, so I have to get into a groove. My usual quantity of cooking is reserved for quick grilled cheese sandwiches, full Thanksgiving dinners, ramen on Saturday mornings, baked salmon once a week and breakfast eggs. The rest of the time, I buy lunch or take out for dinner: Greek, pizza, Chinese and sushi are our weekly staples.
The menu after a new food supply shopping trip is usually pretty good: a variety of egg dishes, baked chicken, grilled steak, fish with garlic mustard and capers, pots and pots of white rice, sautéed veggies and fresh apple and strawberry snacks. As the week goes by and our fresh food supply dwindles, I get creative with our frozen and canned food selection: canned corn and avocado salsa with lime chicken and rice, grilled Spam with egg and peas fried rice, Chef Boyardee ravioli and meatballs with canned green beans and a sprinkle of parmesan cheese. The shrimp chips, Pringles and chocolates come out during snack time.
Occasionally, Hunter will offer his culinary critique. My favorite one so far is when I baked Tyson’s chicken nuggets and Trader Joe’s french fries. “Mom, you are an amazing cook! This is the BEST meal ever!” Thank you, my love. Mario Batali eat your heart out.
The worst judgement he gave is when I combined jarred marinara sauce and a can of chili because I ran out of meat. I put it over capellini with some parmesan cheese. He smelled it and said, “Mom, that smells like garbage.” I asked him to try it anyway since it was all we had. He took 1 bite and said, “Mom, that tastes like POISON. I’m not eating.” He ran out of the kitchen. My husband burst out laughing, tried a bite, grimaced and totally agreed. Cooking fail.
I am definitely out of my element, but I’m trying! Doesn’t that count for something when we’re trying to survive? (According to my husband, if I were on Survivor, I would have died already.) I’ve been working outside the home since I was 12 years old. I don’t do home stuff well. Cooking and cleaning? Bah. When Hunter was born and I became a working mom, I realized I had a decision to make. I could aim to be one of those moms that are seemingly perfect on Pinterest: hair perfectly blown out, yoga body looking tight, home cooked meals from scratch, house kept clean and dog hair free. I realized quickly that I would never be that Mom. I couldn’t be without stressing myself out and the quality of Mom that I could give my child would suffer. Instead, I opted to maintain low standards on the chore stuff and make sure all the minutes I spent with Hunter were priority. To hell with the rest. Vacuum once a week even though there is white dog hair everywhere every day and sticking to every piece of black clothing I have? Ok! Chicken nuggets microwaved for a 2 minute dinner because I ran out of the office late again? Check! 8 minutes of a Youtube Tabata video or dog walk around the block in lieu of a full workout? On it! Hair smelling ripe after 3 days and in need of a leave-in deep conditioning? Leave it!
Since I’m not working outside the home right now, I try to be better at keeping up with the chores, but honestly I’m happier spending the time making my son laugh as we play with paper dolls or Uno and taking snuggly afternoon naps together. Someday he won’t want to snuggle with me anymore. I’ll take it while I can. I will alternate a couple of meals cooked from scratch like my oyster sauce chicken stew with some poison-tasting meals that will definitely come up. Hunter is so similar to me, I’m sure he understands that Mom is doing the best she can. If not, he can ask his Dad to toast a frozen pizza for dinner so I can go wash my ripe hair.
