Karen Yamashita - I Hotel

“That’s the moral of the story?”

“I don’t know nothing about morals. What’s the moral about that apple? Don’t go talking to snakes? It’s already too late. It’s like life. You want good sex? You want good food? You gotta go to the trouble.”

“What about companionship?”

By now, I know. Wen’s living in some big house all by himself.

“I’m living how many years by myself in that I-Hotel? I used to have a regular girlfriend, but then she disappeared. I never see her again. So what’s left? I got food. I’m fighting this eviction thing.”

Wen looks sad.

“Listen,” I say, “Wen, my friend. You still young, but I tell you something they never tell you when you’re young. You think you gotta have your woman. That’s what you hungry for all the time. Guys like me don’t have that chance. So we got that knowledge. But I tell you this. Most important thing you gotta learn is to be alone. I think I’m not cut out for this. I go back to the Philippines or something. But this is my home now after fifty years. It’s my freedom. I’m gonna die free. And I’m gonna die alone. Same for everyone.”

I don’t see Wen for a while, then he comes around and we go look for noodles like usual. He says, “I been thinking about your story.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah, the part where I’m confused is the menu. You said twice a year on the solstices. That’s summer and winter. How about the equinoxes? Spring and fall?”

“O.K., we can change the story. Why not? Four times a year.”

“You can change the myth like that?”

“Why not? It’s my myth. I change it if I want.”

“Is that so?”

“This is improvement. Definitely. You got to get the variety of food in each season. Of course! Spring duck! Summer could be tropical, refreshing. Fall, big harvest. Winter gotta braise the meats, slow cooking in heavier wines.” So that’s when we start to make menus. I say, “At night, I’m dreaming menus. Like summer. First course: lime ceviche, try albacore.”

He says, “Second course: drunken chicken in Shao-hsing wine.”

I say, “Fried lobster claws.”

He says, “Cold sour soup with cucumber.”

I say, “Peking duck on steamed bread.”

He says, “Zucchini flowers and tofu.”

I say, “Barbecued spareribs.”

He says, “Beef with asparagus.”

I say, “Brandied scallops.”

He says, “Lychee sorbet.” Then he says, “The first dish, ceviche. That’s not Chinese.”

“Who said it has to be Chinese? What about lychee sorbet?”

“Closer than ceviche. We do South America later. For authenticity, the menu should match the Chinese version of the myth.”

“O.K. Squab-stuffed mushrooms.”

“Now I’m hungry.”

“O.K. You buy the ingredients, I make everything. Completely authentic. You gonna think you’re Nixon in China. I heard he got himself a Chinese cook, but common knowledge he’s Pilipino.”

“You’re lying.”

“Maybe not. You look around. Take the movies. Pilipinos stand in for everything: Indian, Mexican, Chinese, Egyptian, Hawaiian. That’s what good coloring does for you.”

“What’s the movies got to do with this?”

“Hey, I cook you any kind of cooking. Doesn’t matter. People come peek in the kitchen to see who the chef is. Ask me, when did you come here from Japan? Or, you must be French Vietnamese. Did you get your training in France? I always say, that’s right. How did you know?”

So that’s how every once in a while I go to Wen’s place, put on my chef hat, and cook. Always a crowd there testing the palate. Like I said. At night, I’m dreaming menus. O.K., I’m dreaming beautiful women too, but all I remember in the morning is the menu. Think about it. Beautiful menu like a beautiful woman: refreshing, delicate, sophisticated, succulent, juicy, spicy. Takes your breath away. You die happy. So if I give the menu to Wen, one day we go shopping. Half of my dream comes true. What you think? Fifty percent is pretty good for old guy like me.

People say, you gonna give us cooking lessons. Pass on the traditions. Pass on the secrets. I say sure. I pass on everything. Some say, what is it? The ingredients? You get this stuff imported? I say, I don’t know. Most of it hundred percent American ingredients. Made in America. Where you think we are? Some stuff you improvise. Make your own. Then there’s bird nests and shark fins. Ube and taro. If you get your hands on the exotic stuff, they all go wild. They can’t believe their taste buds. But from my point of view, it’s only fifty percent ingredients. Other fifty percent is technique. Every cuisine got technique. You got to know the way. For Chinese, it’s the way of fire.

So Wen’s got a celebration going, and three of us taking turns with the dishes. Wen, he got a duck smoked in tea, red peppers, cinnamon, and star anise. Then Jack Sung’s making lobster Cantonese with black beans. But I got the piece of resistance.

Jack says, “Hey, manong. You starting to sound like Master Po.”

“That’s me. Kung fu cooking master.”

“What’s that dish you got there?”

“You know this dish? Mrs. Nixon’s favorite.”

“Mrs. Watergate herself?”

“Serious. I made it for her in the Great Hall when she visited China in 1972.”

Wen laughs. “Another true story.”

I take out the Life magazine and show Jack the pictures. “Here it is. You call this dish, ‘lady’s quivering buttocks.’”

“No fucking shit!”

“Dongpo pork,” says Wen. “It’s a Song Dynasty recipe named after the poet Su Dongpo. Dongpo wrote a poem for this dish: ‘In Praise of Pork.’”

“He compares it to a lady’s quivering buttocks?”

“Why not?”

“Oh, mama!”

The pork belly melts between your teeth. Like I said, it’s a piece of resistance.

“What else you cook up for Pat?”

“Oh, jasmine chicken soup, three-colored sharks fins, smoked duck in tea.”

“And they say I’m bourgeois.”

“You convert to Mao, we let you eat like this too. By the way, this was Mao’s favorite too. That’s why I make it. To honor Mao.”

“End of an era.”

We toast to Mao, who just died. We toast to Chou En-lai, died in January. “To the end of the Long March.”

“That’s it,” Jack says. “You should write a cookbook.”

“I been thinking the same thing. I base it on the classic Asian myth of the two separated lovers.”

“What’s that?”

I tell him the tragic story of the lovers that all Asians should know.

“Chen, this guy’s a real bullshitter.”

“You look it up. All Asian people know this myth.”

Wen winks. “Look it up.”

I say, “My idea for the cookbook is simple. We do Asian American cuisine. American because we use ingredients found in America. Imported is O.K. Ajinomoto. Soy sauce. Wonton wrappers. Then we do ten-course menus in Chinese, Japanese, Pilipino, Korean, you name your Asian American. Only problem is I can’t write.”

Jack says, “You leave that to me.”

“You got to tell the classic myth. That’s the key.”

“If you insist.”

Wen knows better. “And we have to test all the recipes.”

“No problem. I volunteer.”

I say, “After Nixon in China, you see all these Chinese cookbooks. Problem I see is no pictures. I gotta have pictures in my cookbook.”

So after this, I’m telling Jack the menus and the recipes, and Wen is painting pictures of the food. He’s also got poems in Chinese next to the pictures. How do I know what they say? I say to him he better have sex in those poems, like “quivering buttocks.”

He says, “Don’t worry.” Up in his studio, he’s painting every day. I find out he quits teaching. Quits writing his books. It’s just painting and cooking and writing poetry.