Hello and welcome back to Five Things I Ate! This week, we recover from Thanksgiving. Editorās note: I have been out sick this week with a breakthrough case of COVID-19 so the majority of this newsletter was written last week. Contents may have slightly settled since then, give it a good shake. Check out past posts here, and please follow my Instagram @fivethingsiate.Ā Ā
Fuyu persimmons from my parentsā tree
Every November I stockpile persimmons like a squirrel gathering acorns. If you open the produce drawer in my refrigerator, you will find not one, not two, but three separate piles of the fruits: One is a bag I bought from a street vendor, small but bright orange-red in color; another is a slightly more muted and less flavorful bag from Trader Joeās; and the third, and best pile of all, large and beautiful like Christmas ornaments, are from my parentsā tree. Those are the best fruits of all, and I savor them carefully, allowing myself one each morning (but I usually end up eating another at night). Each one is a physical reminder of my parentsā love, and how between the two of them, they are able to grow just about anything; a little tree that lost a big branch in the hurricane yet still yields hundreds of fruits better than those at the grocery store, and a child like me, who has maybe lost three of her nine lives before the age of 30, but still grew up to be a woman.
Eight treasure rice, two ways from my mom and aunt
At the Thanksgiving table
My mother has a sister that is five years older than her, just like me (give and take a year), and they both showed up to Thanksgiving with ba bao fan, without coordinating. Sometimes I look at my sibling, and then I look at my mom and my aunt, and then I wonder if having a sister will be like this for the rest of my life. Just a long list of WeChat miscommunications and a constant muttering of āI donāt get her at all,ā but then you both show up to dinner with the same dish because you have the same brain after all. Legend has it that my aunt cooked the sticky rice in her dish for several days in the pressure cooker; my mom probably made hers in the microwave because she hates following rules. I have no idea what the recipe is for either, but I ate them both.
Madelaine Chocolate Christmas Tree Countdown Advent Calendar at home
Hereās the link on Amazon.
I highly, highly recommend buying yourself a little advent calendar as a treat. I low-key wish all calendars had little chocolate trap doors, so you would wake up every morning and instead of looking at the wall and being like āitās fucking September 25thā youād just be rewarded with a little chocolate for the simple act of choosing to get out of bed each and every day. It has also made marking my days in isolation less depressing. This chocolate advent calendar from Madelaine really knocked my expectations out of the park for a last-minute Amazon purchase. It comes in several different designs, but as my apartment is too small for even the tiniest of potted trees, I chose the Christmas tree design, so now I have at least a picture of a Christmas tree in my home. The picture is bright and cheery, the chocolates are wrapped like little presents (š„ŗ) and each day when you open the little trap door thereās something written inside! Also, best of all the chocolates are solid milk chocolate. As we all know I am a milk chocolate stan. Anyways, itās not too late to order one yourself ā youāll even get to eat several chocolates upfront to catch up on the counting.Ā
Noonaās Yuzu Blossom ice cream, in the form of a care package
There is nothing greater on Earth than the care of a really good girl (space) friend. (This is not to be confused with a girlfriend, a mythical creature that has the ability to ruin your life as much as a boyfriend). My wonderful friend Hannah sent me the best sick day care package of all time, which contained not one, but two pints of ice cream. Not only were there two pints of ice cream, they were delightful flavors: Toasted Rice and Yuzu Blossom, from a Korean American ice cream company called Noonaās. Unfortunately I havenāt been able to properly taste the toasted rice one, because Iāve still been sick, but the Yuzu Blossom flavor is so light and citrusy it shines through to even the most congested of taste buds, brightening up the dreariest of weeks.
Fage 2% yogurt with cherry jam at home
Youāve seen it before, in the grocery store.
Before I got sick, I never knew that my sense of smell could betray me like that ā that it could go out like a candle light, and in the same way, flicker. In some ways, you would think that I, of all people, should have expected that it could. (I have a chronic condition that causes my hearing to sometimes waver.) But one morning I woke up and opened a jar of kimchi, and in the evening when I took a second helping from the fridge, I brought it under my nose and realized I could smell nothing at all. Of all the ways that COVID-19 has robbed my life of joy in the past two years, this felt the most intimate and personal.Ā What surprised me the most about temporarily losing my ability to smell (I am very grateful to have retained my ability to taste) was how much it changed my hunger. Even though I had not eaten all day, I couldnāt bear to eat a bite of the stir-fry that I had made, filled with ginger and scallions that now had no taste, just texture. It gave me the same sense of panic that I have when I try to watch a movie that is slightly too quiet without captions on: I am scared that I am missing something everyone else can hear. After trying an unsatisfying bite of everything in my fridge, I finally found solace in something simple. It turns out that Greek yogurt, a food I normally snub, is the perfect scentless snack. The experience of eating it was almost the same as it was without COVID ā the tangy and creaminess still detectable on my tongue, with the artificial-tasting cherry jam, which I usually find cloying, the perfect amount of sweetness to register sharply on my palette.Ā Ā
Stay healthy,
Soph
P.S. The holidays are coming up and why not buy your friend a subscription of Five Things I Ate as a gift? Or, you can buy me a gift by subscribing yourself. All proceeds will be used to support my medical bills and my adorable catās dental surgery, so you know itās going to a good cause.