FOOD

isn’t food the label of love? A meal cooked with love that we share with others. From a young age, I already had a strange addiction to food that is shared. I always thought about how we shared food every day, every morning, every night. The morning was for the quick and easy stuff, for busy people like my mom or my dad just to get a quick meal to go to work so anything fast and easy like instant noodles, fried leftover rice from last night’s dinner, buttered toast with pate (a meat and liver spread) or we could grab something off the road like sticky rice, steamed buns, and all the good stuff. Lunch was different for all age groups, lunch for my parents was a meal they share with their colleagues at the company, usually, it would be rice vermicelli or rice with protein and some veggies. Dinner, however, was always my favorite. Dinner is when love is cooked, love is dined in and dined out. Dinner was when we had time to sit down and have a meal with our family when we had time to ask each other about our day and my granny would be cooking. My granny has always cooked great food somehow, everything she made was different from everybody else. The food she made felt like home and no one else could recreate it. Even the most ordinary-looking meal that she made tasted like heaven, and that inspired me. I became interested in cooking and serving food. Something about being able to make other people's food and seeing them enjoy your food was my purpose. 

Before I got into high school, I enrolled in a French major so I could speak a bit more French because I wanted to go to France to study cuisine, I wanted to serve, I wanted to cook, I wanted to do what my granny did but for everyone not just my family, I wanted to spread my labor of love to the people close and far away from me. But that didn’t happen.
My dreams were crushed as I went into high school, I hated cooking as I was angry about not being able to study cuisine, I was rebellious, never had a meal at home, and always had to eat out with my friends which I thought was good but the more I had it the less I wanted it. I tried baking, thought it was for me cause it’s the closest thing to cooking, and that way I could somehow still relive my dream of serving other people but having avoided the kitchen since high school, I wasn’t gentle enough for any of the recipes, I couldn’t make the delicate, fancy-schmancy looking things like macarons or strudel. So again, I gave up. 

When I got to Melbourne, I only studied and played and smoked. But I had one other thing that kept me sane after all the issues I met. When my friends asked me over for dinner and we had a sleepover. I realized that this is my chance to cook again, I could cook for these people I love, and I could cook for my next family. I love seeing them just going insane over some of my dishes, lying on the floor screaming. It made me proud of myself, of how I could fill other people with joy. I just loved that so much.

Cook for the ones you love
Show them that good food comes from the heart
Show them that love is what we had for dinner yesterday
Show them that love is what we pack in our lunchboxes
Love is what we make for each other