Behind the cold marble counter, Ama shuffles around the kitchen in her firm wool slippers. The rusted burners on the stove are never vacant; there is always a boiling black pot or a large pan of food sizzling away. She tosses thick noodles and vegetables sticky with sauce in a porcelain bowl, stirs green onions into the soy sauce dish with a slick pair of chopsticks, uses glass lids cloaked with moisture to silence the hissings on the stove. After she finishes, I pour myself a glass of bubbling ginger ale and feast, proclaiming “很好吃!”¹ in between bites. Ama always wears soft, thin clothing that strokes my skin when she pulls me in for a hug—which are far longer than anyone else’s. She lives in Campbell, just north of San Jose, so I see her every week or so. Whenever I visit, she pushes my head down, as if to shrink me below her five-foot-nothing frame (five-foot-three if you count her wild gray hair). Her kitchen is constantly crowded, by a parent groping in the drawers for a soup spoon, by a dog scurrying to lick up a grain of rice, by Ama herself, adding a cheesecake baked to a majestic brown to the buffet. The refrigerator is a constellation of plastic magnets and foam-framed photographs. A gallery of cards, decorated with stickers and reading, “生日快乐”² in fat marker, has recently sprouted on the glass cabinets. Sometimes, when I am lounging on the leather couch during family gatherings, watching whatever bubbly television program my younger cousins have decided to put on, Ama calls, “许茂哲!”—my Chinese name—and I hurry over to the kitchen. I watch as she folds dried cranberries into the dough of 馒头³ to add a kick of sweetness, or lays strips of 猪肉⁴ into a golden yolk mixture, before rolling them around in a carpet of crackling breadcrumbs. As I am watching her deft preparations, I notice a magic, an ethereal, yet commanding magic, a magic that both flutters and punches, rolling off her fingers and into the food. It is a magic that my father emulates when he drops chocolate chips into thick pancake batter to fry for my brother and I, that I emulate when I use bamboo tools to eagerly craft a long roll of sushi for the family. We always leave Ama’s house clutching brown paper bags stuffed with goodies: mesh bags of tangerines, packaged pineapple cakes, rice cookies snowed with trails of white frosting, and multitudes of Tupperware containers that hold the leftover food, because Ama always makes extra. The wild smells of her kitchen tuck themselves into the bag and set themselves free in the warmth of our car as we drive home after dark. Whenever she calls the home line and I dash to pick up the phone, I tell her about my day in cluttered Chinglish. After that, she does most of the talking, and I perk up my ears. She instructs me to play more basketball because it will stretch me out, therefore making me taller. She reminds me to sleep more so I am not tired, and I wonder whether I will ever have all the answers as she does. She provides a report on the family of hummingbirds that have taken refuge in her small backyard, sometimes sending a picture of speckled eggs or beating wings on Line. She talks about how next time she’ll show me how to make 葱油饼⁵. She says, “我很想你,”⁶ and I think I taste her food on the words before we say goodbye.