My Love Letters To Food

To My First Love: Thank you.

' P'Tho

By the time you read this letter, I will be on a plane to London.

When I was sitting in the abortion clinic, nine months ago, waiting for my name to be called, all I could think of was one thing. Your smile. It gave me comfort and a feeling that everything would work out as it should. It was then that I knew that you deserved him more than me. His name is Nam. He's three weeks old.

I know what I am doing is selfish but I have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to have the job of my dreams. If I stay, I will never be able to give him the life he deserves. He will just serve as a source of resentment and anger over my failed attempt at love with a married man. He has no idea Nam exists and I would like for it to stay that way. It was him who suggested the abortion, to begin with, but Nam is innocent in all of this. I did not have the heart to do it.

Now here comes the favor I need from you. 

Please raise him for me. I am not fit or deserving to be a mother to this precious Snowflake. He deserves a loving and complete family. I could only think of you and how caring you are. He deserves you. I know this is a huge responsibility and your career is just budding but I have no one in this world besides you. I have no excuse for doing this and I will never come back and ask for him. I will only ask to remain in contact with you while he grows up.

I listed you as the father on his birth certificate.

All my love,

Jiew.'

Chef Tho read the letter for the twelfth time as his parents looked at the snow-white child in the car seat on the couch opposite them. He had so many questions but no one to answer them. His parents looked at him and only pity shone in their eyes. His mothers' eyes constantly glazed over with tears when she looked at him and the baby. 

What was Chef Tho to do with a baby? He was still a child in some ways himself. How could Jiew do this to him? Silence rang through the air and somehow it was too loud for him. He had never been so afraid to be alone with his thoughts. 

As if by a telepathic ability, Nam, the baby started to giggle and fiddle with his hands that were covered in tiny red socks. He looked directly at Chef Tho and smiled. Tho did not know what came over him but he went over to the car seat and unbuckled the baby. His parents held their breath, watching as he slowly and carefully lifted the newborn from his car seat and placed Nam against his chest. 

In the smallest voice possible, he whispered to Nam, "Hey there little one. I guess I'm your Pa now. I wasn't ready for you but I guess since we are here, we might as well try this. Your Ma is really crazy though." As if he could understand the words spoken to him, Nam made a loud screeching noise of joy and gripped Chef Nam's coat tightly. 

"Tho, is this really what you want? I'm sure he can stay with us while you figure things out. You've got the chef's world tour in a few months and the restaurant reviews after that. Life for you is busy at the moment. Can you do this?" His mother, Ester, asked him as she watched her son take parenthood lightly.

 It was an all-consuming job she knew all too well. Especially when you are trying to establish your life and career. "Ma, I don't know how I'm going to do it all yet, but I know that I'm his father now. I don't know how I'm going to manage it all but I know that he's my responsibility, and I can't just pass him onto you. You've got your hands full with Nong' Fon and Nong'Fah as it is. A newborn would be too much." Chef Tho reasoned with his mother as he already knew that his younger twin siblings had his parents ready to pass out at the end of every day. 

"But how are you going to deal with a newborn and your crazy shifts at the restaurant. You have fifteen to eighteen-hour days at times Tho! Think about this carefully! This is a baby and you are not experienced enough to do this on your own! How could this girl just leave you with a baby that is not your responsibility? This is unfair. Your career is just starting." Ester ranted as she became angrier the more she thought of the sacrifices her son would have to make at the age of twenty-six to parent a child that was not even his. "Calm down Dear. This is not our decision to make. It's him and as much as I agree that it is unfair, Tho looks like he's made up his mind. Our only choice is to respect his choices and be there for him." Chef Tho's father, Edin, reasons with his wife as he watched their son rub circles on Nam's back. 

The baby was starting to get restless from the obvious tension in the room and let out small whining sounds. Chef Tho looked through the number of bags next to the car seat on his couch and found a bottle of ready-made milk that had a sticky note on it: 'Warm up in a bowl of hot water and serve at elbow temperature.' He smiled at the note and walked out of the living room and into the kitchen to warm the bottle as instructed.

In the living room, his mother was going into a panicked state. "This is just ridiculous. How can she just do this to him? It's not even his baby!" Ester fretted over the current situation as she reread the letter Jiew had left with the baby on Tho's doorstep that rainy night. She could still hear the voice of panic that Tho had used when he had called them having arrived with a baby at his door and all its belongings. 

"You forget that sixteen-year-old you ran away with me after your parents said you had to abort Tho. We were dirt poor, working so many jobs we could barely sleep. You were afraid to even hold him the first few months because he was so tiny and fragile. We had no idea what we were doing. At least Tho has had some practice with the twins. And looked at him. He's a natural." 

Edin reverberated what was in Ester's subconscious but she still had a tough time believing that this was her son's life. "But he's got so much to live for to throw it away for a baby. How is he going to go on the chef world tour with Nam? How is he going to focus on getting another Mechalin star while focusing on raising a baby? Everyone has such high hopes for him." This was a very selfish move to Ester on Jiew's part. She was halfway across the world starting her dream life while Tho would be there starting a chapter not meant for him just yet. Why was she so cruel to Tho?

"We did it. We went to university with him. We did everything with him right there beside us. You breastfed him in front of your entire faculty because you had initiation ceremonies that went beyond his daycare hours. We took him to all our rugby games and he sat there with the coaches because you were a cheerleader and I had to play. We made it work with him and we were much younger. He can make it work with Nam. He's not alone. Just like we had support from our friends and teachers, he will have help from us. He's not alone." Edin hugged his wife as she started to see reason. 

"Isn't it always you that tells us that everything happens for a reason and that each new chapter in our lives is what we were designed for? Ready or not. This could be his one and only chance to become a father." Ester sat there in deep thought as she repeated her husbands' words to herself and she knew he was right. Everything had its time. She had believed that since she found out she was pregnant a few months before she turned sixteen. She knew that her baby was a blessing to her and she had no doubt that she could be a good mother. "Okay." was the only word that came to mind as she thought about what she could possibly do to help her son. 

During their conversation, Chef Tho had taken Nam to his bedroom and fed him his bottle as he had with the twins. After Nam had consumed the whole bottle, Chef Tho lay a towel on his shoulder and attempted to burb him. When he heard a faint exhale of breath a couple of times, followed by a louder one, he knew Nam was done. Realizing his feet hurt and that he hadn't sat down since his lunch break that afternoon, he carefully laid down on his bed and placed Nam on his chest. Taking the nearest blanket on his bed, he draped it over them and prayed that Nam would fall asleep soon. He dosed off before he checked.

When his parents went to check on them as they were about to leave, they found both baby and father knocked out for the night. Ester tried to move Nam onto the side but the snow-white baby gripped onto her son with a manly force and she just let them be. Her eyes caught the box of her son's camera on the table opposite his bed and she took a quick picture of them. Her husband just smiled at them and waited for his wife at the door. 

20 Years Later.

Quarantine.

The one word that took the fun out of everything I had planned during my first year of freedom. I was one of those unlucky people to have moved abroad a few months before coronavirus became a worldwide pandemic. I was stuck in my mothers' penthouse all alone. I couldn't even go home because the world was in obvious turmoil, and lockdown regulations had closed down the world completely to try and stop the spread of coronavirus. It was a very difficult time for me to be alone and in isolation. 

I had never been that alone in my entire life. I was always surrounded by my father and grandparents, or my aunt and uncle. I was always at my father's restaurant or visiting my uncle and aunt at their shared apartment. I always had somewhere to be during the weekend or a trip to take with my father or mother on the holidays. My life was always so busy that I would wish I could stop time. 

However, being truly alone now, I wish I could have all the madness and chaos. I wish I was back home, in Thailand, instead of here, in London, all alone. To hell with a fresh start and independence. I wanted to go home. As much as I may have been alone there physically, I had to hand it to my family for making me feel surrounded by them with their constant video calls and text messages. My grandparents called me the most. It was kind of funny because, before this whole pandemic, they hardly used social media. Now, I could barely get them to stop tagging me in every post once they figured it out. My father was no better.

'Chef Sexy', as the women of Twitter had budded him, is always tagging me in all his posts all the time. My mother wasn't as overbearing but she had me talking to a psychologist every day during the entire time just to make sure I was okay. I was grateful for that. I needed it more than I thought I did. 

My aunt and uncle were the most entertaining to talk to though because of how much they had argued during this pandemic. They had initially refused to go home because they thought it would all blow over soon but after two months together, they had regrets. I would call them just to watch them fight with each other and at one point they had even sectioned their apartment into two so they could have space away from each other. It was the best reality show ever. I did find other things to occupy my spare time here though.

My psychologist suggested I do things that make me feel relaxed and calm when I'm alone so I started cooking. Cooking was always my happy place because I grew up in the kitchen. I was always around food. Whether it was at home with my father or out and about with my aunt and uncle, food was always there. I even worked in my fathers' restaurant as a junior chef all my high school life. I loved to cook. I also enjoyed posting what I cooked and making full-time cooking tutorials for people who wanted to learn.

My parents' strong social media following may have helped me a little when I started but as I was in quarantine I decided to take it more seriously and became a food content social media account. I posted about cooking basics and making food your own. I also went on long live streams that served as cooking classes like the ones I gave at my fathers' restaurant.

I found a way to do all the things that I missed about my life, pre-covid, virtually. It was really fun. I even did a few collaborations with my father and grandmother via i********: live and open zoom meetings, teaching people how to make some of our favorite family recipes.v

 However, the most life changing thing I did during that time was write a cookbook for my father for father's day. I had set out to try and convey some of the emotions I had found myself struggling with and so my psychologist told me to express them however it felt natural. Food was my first thought and so I ambitiously set out to recreate all dishes that reminded me of my childhood with my father. I realized while compiling this book that I was writing a love letter of sorts to my father. 

It went into great detail about a lot of things that were very important to me and that shaped certain parts of my personality that he may have not known about. I wanted to highlight his importance to me and the food that he nourished me with.

I also found myself playing around with South African and Thai flavors. My father had taken me there my first time abroad at a few months old and I had taken a liking to a lot of their food. Maze meal porridge that was taken out in the early stages of making Zulu bear and a type of curdled milk called Maas were my favorites then. We went back more times than I could count and each time new flavours inspired me to create more and think of new combinations. 

It was a different world there and their rules of cooking were more specific to the combination of cultures that were combined at a time. Food was of interpretation to the cook. This inspired two new dishes that I knew my father would love and it brought a new perspective to South African and Thai flavors for me. 

He loved the book so much that he gave it to his agent to shop around. After a week, my book had over five bids and I was brought into a world I never knew could exist with me as the lead. I became a bestseller and a food content creator. It was like one night I went to sleep as a kid who sent their father a birthday gift and the next I was over two hundred thousand followers up on i********:, and a best seller. 

My father bragged about it so much to his colleagues and critics that everyone wanted to see if he was critiquing as a father or a world-renowned chef. My mother made sure every television station in our city was talking about this book and even had her friends in higher places at different television stations around London looking at my book. 

She had said that whether it was good or bad, I was a success by the number of copies I had sold anyway. I was taken for the ride of a lifetime by one simple book. Imagine that. I had an agent, a publicist, a social media management team, and an editor already talking about my next project. The world went from barely knowing me to searching my name over thirty million times in the span of a few months. Love Letters To My First Love: Food of My Childhood, was blown way out of proportions. 

"Nam, you have a career now. You may have taken this as a hobby but look at the reach your book has had in just a few months. You have gone from a content blogger and influencer to a household name on an almost global scale. This is every chefs dream. Now, while I respect your choice in a sensible career as a business science student, the kitchen is where you belong. I'm not by any means saying drop out of university but I am asking you to consider coming home to Thailand and studying here. This way, your image as a Thai chef can be better houned and nurtured. We only want what is best for you and while London is amazing, home is where your food is most loved, respected, and recognized. The people here want to support you as well." P'Anda pleaded with me during my signing zoom meeting with her as my agent. Although my father had been there along with my lawyer, they left that decision to me and everyone under the son knew how indecisive I was. 

Talking to my mother always seemed to help. A video call being the only way. After just three rings the screen shows my gorgeous mother laid on the lush green grass under the beautiful Thai sun.

"P'Jiew, what am I going to do? Should I just give up on London and come home or should I stay? I've done the virtual thing for a while now and I think I can still do it? why do things have to change so quickly? I just left and now I have to come home?" I whined to my mother as she smiled at me and listened. When I was done, she adjusted herself on the grass to sit up. 

"No one is forcing you to do anything Nam. If you want to stay in London, you can. If you want to come home, you are more than welcome here. I think what P'Anda meant was that you need to consider what aspects you want to make up your career. Do you want to be a Thai chef that isn't rooted in the Thai culinary scene and has made no deep connections with its land? Or do you want to be a Thai chef that knows every step of a meal, like your father, and is respected by the people you represent by becoming a piece of history?

 Snow Flake, your father had ample opportunities to become an international chef but he chose to stay because he knew he wanted to have global impact with his authenticity. He made the world come to him instead of going to the world. That may not have made sense then but after decades of him doing this, he's a part of Thai history for his closeness to the food and the people. The people matter Nam." 

There she went being right and bringing things into perspective. I couldn't want to be a Thai chef without being in Thailand. My fathers career was proof enough that I could be internationally respected and still be well travelled without abandoning the place that brought me to the world. The dishes that shaped me are made from the people. 

After that conversation, I was able to find space in a university close to home. I had only to wait until after my finals and the flights going to Thailand align so I could go back home. As I waited, P'Anda had my father and I had on a virtual promotion for the book, as well as, interviews with various talk shows, both, in Thailand and London. I had to sort through sponsorships and affiliate opportunities so I could start making some serious money. I did not see money as important at all. It was all just so over whelming for me.

 However, I had no time to be overwhelmed because I was preparing to go home in no time. London was a great but short-lived experience. The late spring of May came by very quickly and so did my finals. After my transcripts were delivered to me, I was on the first flight home. I had arrived in Bangkok two weeks ago where I was quarantined in a hotel for two weeks. Today is day fifteen and I am on my way home as we speak. My father is driving us home and I have never looked forward to seeing our house than I do right now. I just want everything familiar to be around me. My bed, my belcony, my garden, and even the neighbors' kids that always threw balls at my head while I was busy in my garden.

"When you get home, don't make a big deal because Jiew is there. She's been staying with me since the lockdown regulations restricted visitations. I asked her to so don't start." That is the first thing my father said to me as we drive into our neighbourhood. I just look out the window and give a distant, "Mmmh." in response. 

Over the years, they have teetered around the subject for becoming an item but have always used me as an excuse based on how I reacted. So I've decided to be neutral on the subject. No reaction is a good reaction.

 "Everyone is visiting and excited to see you so can you at least pretend to be excited." My father says sarcastically as he drives into our driveway. He rubs his hand through my hair but I shake his hand off. "I'm not a little kid anymore Pa. You're messing up my hair." My whining only serves to amuse him and I get out of the car to get my bags from the trunk. Having not taken much from London except clothes to quarantine in, I have very little luggage. The rest can be left there until my mother decides if she wants to sell. 

He walks behind me and smiles at me as struggle with the second bag. Taking the second bag and tosses me the keys to the car so I can lock it up, Pa walks into the house.

I don't understand why I am not happy to be home. I've been looking forward to this for almost a year but now that I'm here, all I can think of is how different home is. Everything is a shell of what it was. Even me. I am more than what I was when I left. Somehow, this place makes me return to that dejected kid that left for London a year ago. 

The smell of aeb pla nin greets me at the door and I know she really is here. Leaving my bag near the stairs, I run to her as she runs to me and we meet in the living room near the outdoor kitchen. For a few seconds of bliss, I just hug my mother and she just holds me close. She rocks us back and forth while kissing my head. "I missed you so much, Snow Flake. Are you hungry? The food will be ready in a few minutes. Come on." 

Pulling my hand towards the backyard patio kitchen, I see my father busy frying something. I hear a crunching sound from my uncle standing beside him and I know its patongo (ปาท่องโก๋). "Ay, you little s**t! If you eat another one, I'll tell Ma why she's losing friends." Uncle Fah backs away and walks towards me. "Your Pa really sucks. Mah has too many friends anyway" He whispers to me and I push him away. "Don't drag me into your nasty business." Aunt Fon laughs at him and he just shoves me away. "You and your Pa are just the same. Can't get none, so you want to ruin mine." My mother just smacks his head and hugs me close. "What you're going to get is an STD before you graduate with your college degree." she scolds him and aunt Fon is on the floor laughing. 

I lay down next to her and we stare at the sky for no reason. She grabs ahold of my hand and I grab hers. We snuggle our heads together and she starts to hum. Everyone else just looks at us as if we've gone crazy, but this is how we are. We are weird and in the same way. We have a language between us that transcends words. We just speak less when we say more.

"Why are you two always on the floor? Get up, it's dirty down there!" My grandmother, Ester, scolds us as we lay there holding hands. We just ignore her and face each other. We smile at each other widely and place our palms towards each others chests and laugh. "They take the same drugs. Look at them." Uncle Fah whispers to my father and he agrees. "Mmmh."As my father tries to walk around us, aunt Fah outstretches her leg and almost trips him. "Fon! Are you crazy? I almost burnt myself."He scolds her as we laugh at him. My mother just sits him down and tends to the small splash of soup on his hand. He smiles at her like an i***t while she dabs a napkin dipped in water over his small burn.

 We cackle at his childish behavior and get up to sit next to my grandfather, Edin. "You two are up to no good again." He whispers at both of us and all three of us giggle a little. It's nothing specific that makes us laugh but rather the connection. All three of us have always had a telepathic relationship of just understanding each other. We are the calmest and quietest people so we tend to connect more. 

My grandmother connects with the rest of them a little better because they are just as outrageous and loud as her. "What are you three gossiping about?" Grandmother Ester asks as she notices our low giggles and hushed conversation. "Oh, nothing Dear. We just missed Nam and we were planning on what to do together to celebrate him being home." Everyone just rolls their eyes and goes back to eating. As I said, we are the less interesting bunch in the family.

Lunch is a warm affair as it always has been. It is filled with laughter and banter from everyone around the table. For the first time in a long time, my mother is here to be a part of it. Her snappy and sharp comebacks have my uncle Fah in tears from laughing too hard because finally, my father has someone who can speak their mind to him. 

"Okay! Okay! Stop! I know I love it when he gets his own attitude served to him but he's my older brother, P'Jiew. Spare him. I can't laugh anymore!" Everyone is laughing except for my father. He looks kind of irritated. My mother, being sweet, decides to kiss him on the cheek and his whole face turns a deep red. "I... I... I'm going to go wash the fence.", is his excuse to leave the table and runs away from us. The funniest part is that he runs upstairs. "You guys now have fences that need washing in the bedroom? What are you two into exactly?" Uncle Fah teases my mother and she just laughs and says the last thing we all expected. "Well, wouldn't you like to know.", and walks inside to find my father upstairs.

"My money is on P'Jiew seducing P'Tho before New years eve." Aunt Fon to my grandmother Ester and uncle Fah. "I say double what you put down but she can get it done before Christmas." grandmother Ester counters the bet and I must disagree. "You're all wrong. I triple all your bets. P'Jiew will settle this before my twentieth birthday. That's exactly two months from now." The table falls silent and my grandfather just has to ask," How are you so sure?" I look at all of them and smile sinisterly. "I know my parents. This is a done deal before I turn twenty years old." 

They all smile at me but everyone sticks to their bets. Uncle Fah only says with a smug smile, "I guarantee that he will be seeing someone else before your birthday. I'm going to set him up. Just wait and see." We all laugh at him because of all my nineteen years alive, he's never once dated another person since he met my mother twenty-two years ago. Everyone knows that. "Let the best bet win." My grandfather raises his glass of wine.