chinese soup
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( a college life vignette)
It’s Thursday morning, usually no one’s favorite, but this one seems sugary new, as if beamed in from a different, better universe. The clouds look fluffy and freshly washed.
Even the freshmen, who’re everywhere, multiplied, as if they’d been cloned overnight, seem less dramatic with their endless droning-on about insignificant political points.
Could this explosive sunniness be because midterms were stupidly easy and spring break is one day away? Hmm, maybe, but it’s not the whole story. Peter (my bf) will be here tomorrow night and for 18 romantic days (and nights) we’re going nowhere except New Haven night spots and my dorm room. I’m so happy, it’s a pure pop euphoria. I almost feel guilty about it.
It’s 45°, the high will be 52°. New Haven’s warming up, I think we have winter on the run, next stop:spring, baby. Sunny, Lisa, Leong and I are breakfasting together before we scatter, like Confetti, for our day.
We’d picked a table by the windows, because it looked relatively clean. We dumped our stuff and began raiding the breakfast bar. All of the choices look depressingly healthy—does anyone else miss grease for breakfast—you know, bacon? Anyone? Oh, well, at least there’s ‘specialty coffee’.
After we’d all settled in, we were quiet. Most were visualizing their day, I supposed. I wasn’t. I was thinking about last night. Last night, Leong was making Chinese soup—she’s a gourmand—and teaching us how to make it. It’s elaborate, and as she worked she married the instructions with details from her life growing up in China.
Like how, back in Macau, they lived in this great house with many servants (her dad is an industrialist) but her grandmother insisted on raising chickens and growing a garden—and somewhere in the mix she added, with heart-on-her-sleeve vulnerability, “My dad doesn’t know how to show his love.”
And we were like, “Oh, wow, Ok, that got real quickly.” It seemed sudden and off-kilter, at first, but as we talked it out, I decided that there was something kind of poetic about using food to talk about the emotional barriers you’re facing with your Chinese father.
“I need some high energy, smashing,” Sunny confided, after her first few sips of coffee.
“It’s 8:23am,” Leong moaned, closing her eyes as if to say, “It’s too early to start.”
“Who says femininity is shy and retiring?” Lisa asked, rhetorically.
I made a face. The pastry I’d gotten was stale. I dropped it, but I didn’t spit out my first bite. “It’s the non-stop of disappointing little things that kill our joy,” I stated, sagely, around the stale mush.
“Epicureanism?” Sunny asked no one in particular. But no one entered the debate.
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Songs for this:
You Can Have It All by Yo La Tengo
Cry! by Caroline Rose
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Webster:gourmand = someone who appreciates good food and drink.
*You can't take a pic these days without getting phto-bombed
Epicureanism = a philosophical system (a form of hedonism) that poses the pursuit of pleasure as the highest good, with a focus on modest, sustainable pleasure rather than extravagant indulgence.
Copyright © Anais Vionet | Year Posted 2025
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