During my growing years my parents owned a family run restaurant called “XoakXai Restaurant” (translated means Good Luck)—a Lao-Thai Restaurant. My mom was the chef, my dad brought the greens from our backyard garden, and at one time or another—most of us kids worked there as servers, preppers, errand runners, or managers (there was no such thing as idle hands in my household--child labor is normal and expected!). Starting around my junior year…I did all of those things and actually kept the books (an Asian that is good with numbers, fairly difficult to imagine, right).
All our herbs and vegetables came from our organic garden and whatever produce we didn’t grow ourselves we purchased at the Farmers' Market. Back then, I didn’t understand the important role such decisions made in my life and in my health—but I know that given the opportunity to go back and change things, my father would not have changed how he made things grow--his methods were the same methods he and his forebears have used for centuries back in the homeland. Lao soil or American soil--it doesn't matter too much when you need to grow food to feed 8 kids, the various people we welcomed our humble home to, and for a business! There are so many studies out there that have shown the link between fertilizers and health defects. Sure—some might just be theoretical…but it’s important to be educated about as many aspects as possible. In the end, the choices we make are limited to the amount of knowledge we have at our disposal—some require more digging and some are spitting in our faces. For some straight comparison purposes...take a regular, fertilized fruit--apple or kiwi and then take an organic one of the same variety--if you have any taste buds at all--you won't fail to notice the difference in flavor and potency. It just tastes better. Period. Regardless of any of that…some of my best memories come from being in that garden with my dad.
One such memory was when I asked my father how I was created. Being the daddy’s little girl that I was—I never questioned the validity of his explanation—just nodded in my very serious way (I was always a pretty practical child, though full of dreams of dancing with dinosaurs) and was happy at his very matter-of-fact answer. To his credit, my father never got anxious, nervous or flustered. He didn’t even wave me off. My father—ever the cool man gardening in a 3 piece suit and a beaver hat. In fact, I believed it for years…until sometime in college when I took the time to think about his words and realized that it was all just a euphemism. You see, my father told me that whenever he wanted to have children, he’d come out and he’d plant a seed in his garden, just like he did when he wanted to grow spearmint or cucumbers. He’d weed around it and he’d water it just like "right now"—and before long, after some time had passed and we were ready, he’d come and dig us out. On a side note: I also remember asking him if he had perhaps lost focus a few times and forgot to weed around one of my older brothers and forgot to water my oldest sister and he laughed and bopped me on the head.
My memories of family and home and childhood are all wrapped around one single concept—yes…we didn’t have much…but no matter how hard-working and how busy my parents were…somehow…they always found a way to create these little memories for me. I had 7 older bullies, oops, I mean siblings…but I can honestly say I had the best childhood ever, because all of them, each in their own way, enriched my life and created very specific memories for me as well.
In truth, this post is inspired by my sister’s incredibly poignant post and vibrantly vivid photos from her most recent trip to an old childhood haunt—the Pasco Farmers' Market. Plus, she wrote the nicest things about me--a far cry from our once contentious relationship (we were always at odds growing up--we were just so different). Oh, how times have changed--and I'm glad they have. While she may have lamented about missing some genes...the photos below are all her--I can't take a decent picture to save my life. Besides, she has a much better ability than all that. I remember I used to joke with her daughter, my niece, about making "something out of nothing" (referring to cooking)...but her mother is the epitome of this sentiment, because I have never met anyone else with the eerie ability to will her dreams into reality. In my estimation--it's much more valuable when something is worked for rather than given. One of these days instead of traipsing around to different countries for vacation—I will make a nice swing through my old life and see the different changes time has wrought. For more on this—please check out her blog
here.
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