Natalie Tan's Book of Luck and Fortune(36)

Using the flat side of the blade, I smashed three cloves of garlic. The fragrant aroma teased my nostrils as I rolled a fat red onion onto the board. The papery amaranthine skin crinkled under my fingertips.

According to Ma-ma, the red onion contained too much chi, the reason it caused so many tears. She compared the red onion to Younger Shen—rich in color and bold in flavor. I never questioned her logic, for no other onion induced the same reaction.

I popped a strip of peppermint gum into my mouth. When I was very young, my mother had prepared a hot and spicy tofu dish that included a red onion. As always, I had stood by the counter, watching, waiting to steal a morsel. The instant her knife cut into the red onion, it was like a pipe burst within me, unleashing a torrent of tears. My mother picked me up by the armpits and carried me to the claw-foot tub in case my tears overflowed while she phoned and asked Mrs. Chiu to run a quick errand. Ma-ma returned to the bathroom with packs of peppermint gum from the Chius’ convenience store. Whether it was the novelty of the chewing gum or the powers of my mother’s secret knowledge, my tears soon stopped flowing.

I dispatched the onions into a neat pile of translucent half crescents as the artificial mint flavor coated my tongue. The next ingredient involved the bouquet of coriander resting at the edge of the counter. I pulled a generous clump from the bunch and plucked the leaves from their stalks in my culinary version of he loves me/he loves me not.

I lifted the bowl to my nose and sniffed. This needed more garlic. I rechecked the ratio of ingredients and peeled three more garlic gloves. Tossing the components together, I set them aside and turned my attention to the fish.

First, I placed the cleaned snapper on a bed of aluminum foil sprinkled with sea salt and olive oil. I then stuffed the tomatoes, garlic, onions, and coriander into the belly of the fish before sewing it shut. The first time I’d tasted this, the snapper was skewered and turned over open flames. To accompany it, I’d drunk the sweet juice from young coconuts cut with machetes, taken off the very trees above us. Now that I was back to apartment living, I had to modify the recipe and grill the fish in a closed packet. The texture of the skin wouldn’t be as crisp, but the flesh would be even more tender. If I had thought Celia preferred the crisp texture, I would have fried it with the stuffing mixture served on the side.

The fish was ready to be baked. I prepared sinanag, Filipino garlic fried rice, to accompany the fish: jasmine rice, smashed garlic cloves, sea salt, and a sprinkle of vegetable oil. Knowing Celia, she would love her apartment to be the theater for the meal—provided I could convince her to remove the stack of magazines currently in her oven.



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?“I come bearing gifts,” I announced as Celia opened her front door for me.

She cooed over the mysterious foil packet resting in the baking pan. “Dinner cooked by someone else is the best kind of courtesy a guest can give.”

We settled into the couch, waiting for the oven to heat up. Celia poured us both a glass of sparkling Italian blood orange sodas. She might not be able to cook, but her stock of beverages was impressive.

“You’d think the extraction process would have been easy today.” Celia wrapped her arms around her middle and giggled. “But Anita had a death grip on Wayne’s neck. Guang had to pull them apart. I have to say, though, I heard they were like this as teens. It was common to see them making out in odd places, and I believe your laolao even had to separate them at one point. I’m happy for them. I don’t think they’ve spent much time with each other in the last decade.”

I laughed. I couldn’t help but be pleased with the results of my efforts. I had to tell Celia about the true nature of the recipes. “I did it,” I declared in a loud whisper. “I did this.”

Celia’s eyes widened behind her glasses. Her mauve painted lips formed an O. “How?”

“Laolao’s recipe book.” I reached into my tote bag and produced my grandmother’s book. “She has hundreds of recipes in here. When Miss Yu gave me the prophecy, she also gave me this from Ma-ma.”

Celia gawked. She made a vague gesture that looked like a hybrid of the sign of the cross and Madonna’s “Vogue” dance moves. “It’s real. I always suspected your grandmother had a book because I caught her writing something down in the kitchen a few times.”

“Do you want to read it?” I asked.

“No, no.” She blushed. “It’s a family heirloom. I feel honored enough that you trusted me to show me.”

Celia had proven herself my only friend—one I had desperately needed since I lost Ma-ma. I’d never had many friends, even before I left home. Ma-ma had taught me that she and I were enough, and while we lived together, we had been. But in the last seven years on my own, I had learned that loneliness wasn’t the best companion.

The scars from my father’s abandonment had shaped me into a paradox, someone who didn’t want to be alone but still shut people out.

My mother had physically isolated herself from the world, and I’d done the same in my travels. I often wondered how much daughters emulated their mothers with or without their conscious control. Had I inherited Ma-ma’s habit of human quarantine like I had inherited the shape of her face? I realized now that trust could be liberating, especially when placed with people like Celia who treated it with care. I had thought I was completely alone when I lost Ma-ma, but I wasn’t. I had Celia. For a brief moment, I contemplated telling her about my meddling. There was still a secret between us. Although it worried me to keep something from her, I told myself that some good deeds were better left unsaid.