Lunchin' with Ma

Ma invited me to her house for lunch last weekend. My husband, William Throckmorton the III, as I like to call him, declined the invitation in order to stay at home and wrestle with various things in the garage, the goal being that we could keep the car in there this winter.

It’s a crazy dream, but he’s a crazy man.

Ma gave me detailed directions to her house, some of which I actually wrote down; and I found her place easily. It began raining as I arrived.

There’s actually no reason for me to tell you that it was raining other than the fact that I have an aversion to rain. Don’t know if it’s the fact that I wear glasses that get wet, that my hair frizzes at even the steam rising off a bowl of pho or the fact that I’ve been told I’m made of sugar – awwww! – but I’ve never liked being rained on.

But that’s not important. What’s important are my take-aways – as we say in the corporate world – from lunch with Ma and Toua:

1. Ma does not know how to cook for three people. Ma cooks for 12 people and sends the rest home with you.

2. The food was aromatic, flavorful, home-y, and uses – except for the big fat completely luscious shrimp – inexpensive ingredients.

3. The aromas coming from her home will make you dream about Marco Polo, the Spice Road, and tiny women serving enormous platters of food.

4. Ma has more pots and pans than anyone I know, some of which are large enough to bathe a child in. If you know of any small children that need bathing, I suggest you bring them to Ma’s kitchen.

5. Ma said that the cooking time on the four main dishes that she made – which does not include the side dishes that she made – took less time than she expected because, and I quote, “I didn’t have to kill a pig”.

After lunch, we sat at the table, nibbling on the plentiful leftovers and sipping beers. We talked about the Little People in the shadows, about tiger spirits, about how much scarier European and Asian films are than American. Toua said that the Hmong believe that there aren’t as many spirits in the U.S. because it is too light, and that even in Asia the spirits are leaving because of the light. I told him that the U.S. doesn’t have any spirits; and that even if there were any someone would probably pull a gun on them…

Please note that I do not advocate violence of any kind, especially where both guns and spirits are involved. I was just playing. Everyone knows you can’t shoot a spirit – you have to trap it in a glass of water.

It was a good time, and I went home with so many leftovers that I didn’t have to cook for two days.

Ma? Toua? Everything was lovely.

Ua tsaug.