BAOBAO

As many of you know, I have an older brother named James. He’s currently studying computer science (nerd) at UIUC with a chemistry minor. His 20th birthday is coming up soon so I decided to dedicate this post to him as a tribute. I don’t think I can even consider this a tribute because I’ll spend my word count making fun of him. I’ll also not show him this.

To start off, James Huang was born on November 6th, 2002 in Fort Wayne, Indiana. A little over two years later, I was born. My mom loves to tell me the story of our first interaction. The day after my birth, my dad brought toddler James into the hospital room to meet his new baby sister. However, toddler James was terrified. In his eyes, his beloved mother was holding a monster. It was just me and my big full-of-hair head. According to my mom, their conversation went like this:

“Do you want to say hi?”

“No”

And then he ran.

Anyway.

Later, he warmed up to me when he realized what I was. I was told he would lift the baby formula box, put it down, pick it back up, and put it back down. One time he spilled it and grabbed a broom to try and clean it. It didn’t work because he was half the size of it. But hey, that was my food you wasted.

A lot of the stories my parents tell me are from our young years because I guess we just weren’t cute enough to remember as we got older.

James couldn’t say “Jessica” when he was two so he shortened it to “Caca”. My parents thought that was SO. CUTE. So they started calling me that too! Unfortunately, my parents weren’t too well versed in other languages as immigrants. So my name was “Caca” for a good chunk of my life until the staff at my grandpa’s restaurant were like, “don’t call her that”.

Thanks, Baobao.

Throughout our school careers, I *didn’t* want to do what he did. I chose to do the viola because he did the violin. Similar, but not the same. He did Spanish, so what did I do? Learn French. However, I did my best to take similar classes as he did in high school.

I often compared myself to him. I wondered why I struggled in school and he didn’t. It was weird to see how different we were despite being raised the same. He towers over my parents, while I’m a smidge shorter. He’s reserved and I’m hot-tempered. My eye prescription is stronger than his despite me being younger. Did I just get the short end of the stick? Genetics are wonderful.

James is the type of person who’s just naturally bright but lacks so much common sense. I like to think I have an aptitude for cooking and baking, he, however, does not. I remember once I wanted to make pancakes for Mother’s Day a few years prior and asked him to melt some butter. He did as he was asked except the butter, still wrapped, sat in the middle of the microwave. I told him he needed a bowl or else it would get messy. So he puts the butter in a bowl and back into the microwave. With the still wrapper on. There were no Mother’s Day pancakes that year.

I’m told I don’t give off “little sister energy”. Maybe it’s because I held more responsibility despite being the youngest. My parents would call me to check up on us, rely on me to plan birthdays, and cook for James and me when they weren’t home. I think it’s because I’m the only child in the household now. When we had overlapping years in school, James would actively avoid me because I embarrassed him too much when I came up to him. Goal achieved I guess.

We were never as close as I’ve seen other siblings be. But when he first moved out for his freshman year, I cried every time I passed his room. It made me sad that I didn’t realize how much I would miss him and that we wouldn’t be living together as a family anymore. I was worried he wouldn’t be able to survive without my mom cooking for him. My parents drive to his apartment every month, a trunk full of frozen food, to make sure he’s well fed. It’s a little laughable but he’s studying hard at least!

When we dropped him off for his sophomore year, that was the first time I hugged him since we were little. It was bittersweet but awkward.

I often think James is questionable and I’m sure he thinks the same about me, but I wouldn’t trade him for the world.

Actually, debatable.

Category: Uncategorized | 3 Comments

October 14

“If Egg Was Art It Would Be Your Tart”

Egg tarts!

Egg tarts are a simple yet popular Chinese dessert originating in Europe and traveled to Asia in the early 20th century. Today, these little delectables can be found in dim sum restaurants and Asian bakeries.

Growing up, my mom loved taking my brother and me to Chinatown. She would always make pit stops at the sketchiest places but the desserts there were always so good.

Except for the egg tarts.

I’m a pretty picky eater if you hadn’t figured it out by now. The egg tarts my mom would buy would always look so pretty but taste so weird. The dessert was as big as my palm and the crust was the best part. In my opinion, the treat did not have the ideal crust-to-custard ratio so that was upsetting. Since I really liked the pie crust and I was not #driven to save food, I was the miscreant who ate around the tart and left whatever I didn’t want for my brother or mom. But Dan Ta is a staple in Chinese cuisine! So I would always see if I would suddenly like it but leave behind a butchered tart.

I think a little part of me wanted to like these desserts because of my mom. When she grew up in Taiwan, these treats were a luxury to her, and I felt guilty about how easily I could waste the food. She would bring us to Chinatown because she wanted to immerse us in the food she grew up eating. As immigrants, my parent’s perception of food is a lot different than mine. They didn’t grow up in the privileged life they were able to give me, yet they didn’t berate me for being picky or wasting food as long as I was fed and happy. And in a sense, this influenced me into using food as a love language. I liked the compliments I would receive and how I could take up the burden of cooking off my parents (even if I still made them do the dishes).

One thing I do enjoy is baking, so I decided to make mini egg tarts to share with my friends and parents.

The recipe itself wasn’t hard, but the process was straight-up annoying. I decided to do everything from scratch because I wanted to make tiny ones and it called for a puff pastry. If you’ve ever made one you would know the struggles. There were two types of dough I had to deal with, and in order to get the flakiness, I needed to make sure there were layers and that the ungodly amount of butter I used didn’t seep into the other dough. The custard part was relatively straightforward with a lot of eggs, milk, sugar, and water. Although this process took a really long time, and I was supposed to be writing my college apps, I thought it was really rewarding and I would definitely do it again.