Overcooked by Patty Ngo

In Asian culture, outer beauty is put at such a high priority.  Women are willing to get life-threating procedures done just to become more beautiful. Asian women are taught at a young age they must look and act a certain way to please the people around them. I see my reflection in a bowl of pho and I worry about how I look. Just like the song from the movie “Mulan”, looking at the reflection in the mirror does not show who a person is on the inside. 

When the aspiration for academic achievement becomes overwhelming, it is easy to become burnt out. Although we all want to be successful in school, mental health should always come first. Vindaloo is one of those dishes that remind me of burnout. I love the taste, but the spice level of this dish becomes too much to handle. 

As you get older and drift apart from the people you grew up with, you start to feel isolated. This feeling was at an all-time high for me during the pandemic when I didn’t see my friends for a whole year, and I had some close friends move away. I would think about how often I used to hang out to get boba with my friends. You never know when you will be sharing a last cup of tea with someone. 

“You’ve gained so much weight. When I was your age, I was a size 0!” - said the auntie who grew up severely malnourished in the streets of  Vietnam. It is heartbreaking to see how many girls develop eating disorders at such a young age after hearing comments like this from their families. These comments had me underfilling my spring rolls so I didn’t eat too much. Now that I am older, I embrace weight gain as a part of growing up. But many women are still disheartened when they think their clothes have become too tight. 

As a child trying to assimilate into the American lifestyle, I convinced myself that the foods from my culture were gross and I should be eating burgers instead. Looking back, it must have been upsetting for my mom to work so hard on a dish, and then her child says “I want McDonalds.” The thought of having red beans in a dessert was so disgusting to me. These days, I definitely have developed a love for the foods that my parents had during their childhoods and I have the past few years trying to perfect them. It took me a while to develop this recipe for red bean buns, which have become a favorite with the people I share them with.

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Similar to a piece of artwork that I have hanging in my own home