Blowing soup

After my migraine attack last week, my mother was insistent that my body was not healthy enough and those 8 years of not drinking 'tong' to 'bo' (ie. maintain/heal) my health after each menstrual period, she made me a clay pot of 'hak guy' black chicken broth. My mother was always an expert in making broth that was lucent clear, healing and delicious. I tried to make the same concoction in San Francisco with pre-packaged herbs and frozen black chicken but the lucidness and taste was incomparable to my mother's magic touch. She knew the right temperature to allow the soup's contents to simmer, when to lower the fire, the right amount of salt to add to not overpower the chicken, and how to perfectly blow the layer of oil floating atop the bowl of soup leaving you a non-greasy sippable soup. She taught me to tilt my bowl forward so that the top most layer of broth grazes the rim of the bowl, then with one sweeping chin back to forward blow slides the grease off into the sink. My mother is a pro. Blowing soup, it's something i almost forgot to do.

Indebtedness

Display of immense gratitude despite animosity. This is my definition of indebtedness, created from reflecting how my mother has behaved to those she feels has helped her stand on her own two feet. Never a christmas passes by where she doesn't visit a family friend near our old home on Kensington Road. Always with a birthday cake and card in hand, my siblings and I gather in front of the gate, waiting for my mom to open the gates. My siblings would pretend to be cheerful even though deep down they would rather be at home watching a movie. We enter the living room furnished with gaudy red wood furniture- the same redwood furniture in our own home. My brother and I spent hours there in our childhood. The living room was where I lost my two front teeth because I hit the corner of the coffee table.