What Matters
Originally written in August 2024
Wednesday evening, I drive the ten minutes from my apartment to Noe Valley with a grocery bag and bottle of wine riding shotgun. The fog has already crested the hilltops by the time I arrive; the wind snarls my hair and possessions in the dozen steps from car to doorway. I ring the bell, wrap my jacket around myself, and wait.
Kaitlyn lets me in. After a hug, I toe off my shoes and add them to the neat rows lining the entryway. “I got everything ready for us!” she says, grinning. Behind her, I hear the gentle cadence of Isha’s voice mingled with the clatter of dishes and Swetha’s unmistakable laugh. “Perfect,” I say, and follow her inside.
At the kitchen counter, Swetha plays music while Isha washes gai lan in the sink. I hug them both before unpacking: kimchi and fruit in the fridge, noodles by the stove, wine in the cooler. Already, Kaitlyn has minced garlic and ginger into separate bowls, peeled and cubed the potatoes, and arranged the other ingredients for jajangmyeon next to the enormous cutting board occupying the island.
My friends and I cook so often that I know where everything in their kitchen lives: the best nonstick pan, the unlabeled cartons of salt and sugar, even everyone’s preferred utensils (forks for Isha and Swetha, while Kaitlyn favors an inexplicable spoon-and-knife combination). Our responsibilities are equally familiar. I boil noodles and chop green onions. Isha sautes the gai lan with garlic and mirin. Swetha pours wine. Kaitlyn stirs the black bean sauce that reminds me so much of home. Throughout it all, we talk and talk, though we see each other so regularly that it’s impossible to imagine we could have anything more to talk about.
Right before everything is ready, I divide the noodles across four big bowls and set the kimchi and a jar of lao gan ma on the table alongside napkins and water glasses for each of us. Kaitlyn ladles sauce, and I garnish with the greenest parts of the onions while Isha transfers the gai lan from pan to plate. We are seated just before seven-thirty. As we eat, the summer sunset spills through the windows to illuminate the rapidly disappearing meal before us, dancing in time with our laughter.
Growing up, I ate dinner every night with my family. My mom would cook these gorgeous homemade meals from scratch; I can still picture her at the stove – fan whirring, pots clanking, unbelievable smells rising from the steam. When I was really young, I used to keep her company, sitting at the island doing my homework and chatting about my day. But once I started high school, I would get back too late, with just enough time to run upstairs, shower, and set the table while she ferried big serving plates and little banchan to and from the counter. Most nights in those later years, it was just her, and the golden kitchen lights, and the array of dishes painstakingly made, patiently awaiting our homecoming.
Back then, cooking seemed like a huge chore, and enormously lonely, too. I didn’t understand why the effort was worth it. Only recently, in this warm San Francisco kitchen with my friends, have I realized she was saying something greater: I love you. Because right now – wine flushing my cheeks, plate long emptied, unable to stop smiling – I understand. I would make this drive a million times, in the fiercest wind or densest fog, to be here in the company of those I love most, eating the dinner we made together.
