我喜歡烹飪和烘焙。或許是因為家學淵源吧——爺爺是北方人，有一手和麵烙餅的絕活；奶奶燒得一手道地的客家好菜，我在吃素以前，每年回台灣都一定要吃她做的白斬雞配客家桔醬；爸爸媽媽即使工作忙碌，也幾乎天天做飯給我們吃，媽媽似乎有數不盡的經典家常菜，而爸爸熱衷於在家裡的廚房重現他曾經嚐過的美食；弟弟更是了不起，從高中開始就唸廚藝學校，畢業工作後師從米其林大廚，後來和同學創業開餐廳，短短一年就勇奪米其林餐盤推薦的殊榮，即使現在改行了，在家裏還是常常大顯神通，和家人分享他料理的美食。我的廚藝是我們全家最差勁的，去年回家時，因為不會用家裡的砂鍋，不小心把飯燒糊了，爸爸還很委婉地請我回美國之前不要再做飯了。即使如此，我依然和我們全家人一樣，喜歡用自己做的美食將溫暖和喜樂帶給身邊的人。
跟媽媽六歲起就扛起一大家子的伙食相比，我進廚房的時間算晚的了。高一時，開始在家政課上小打小鬧，（具體做過什麼菜，我基本上忘了，只記得某次和羅琪和宛霓整出了「小油包」，實實在在地瘋了一回），過一陣子跟著媽媽學烘焙，這個階段跟她學做的糕餅點心，後來都成了我在美國的朋友們眼中的經典款。真正認真地學做菜，是高三畢業的那個暑假，媽媽怕我一個人在美國餓肚子，花了兩個多月的時間，手把手地教了我許多基本的廚藝和她的好幾道拿手菜。我大學主修化學，在實驗室裡學習的策劃、秤量、混合、加熱等等，也被我帶進了廚房。對我來說，廚房就像一個化學實驗室，只不過做出來的成品不是為了要發表學術文章，而是為了滿足自己的胃和心情。後來每年暑假住校外，練習做飯的機會多了，逐漸摸索出了一套自己的風格。上了研究所以後，除了天天自己打理三餐，對於我們這種經濟拮据但是時間充裕的研究生來說，最受歡迎的一項消遣就是在家裏辦一人帶一道菜的百味餐，幾年下來，我累積了不少在朋友間小有名氣的招牌菜。 （偶爾我也會在心中竊喜，好險我在美國，可以憑著這一點手藝揚威江湖，否則同樣的水平搬回台灣的家裡，家人都還不樂意讓我做飯呢！）
做菜最重要的一項工具之一就是食譜，雖然我做了這麼多年的菜，但是一直都沒有系統性地搜集食譜。以前媽媽有一小本索引卡，上面用她清秀挺拔的字跡密密麻麻地記錄了她多年累積下來的食譜。跟著她做菜時，我基本上動手不動腦，完全聽她指揮，所以壓根兒沒想過要寫食譜。出國自立門戶以後，像鳳梨酥和蔥油餅這種做得熟練的，我不需要食譜，頂多帶張寫著食材份量的小抄就可以進廚房。再加上網路日益發達，上網搜尋食譜很方便，我在網路上看到喜歡的食譜就標記，好的食譜多做幾次就背下來，就算忘記了，回頭來找標記的網頁也不費事，所以我的食譜收藏總是零零散散的。現在想來，其實寫食譜就像以前寫化學實驗室記錄本一樣：在實驗室裡，我會詳細地寫下每個實驗的化學原料、設置步驟、時間、結果，在廚房裡，我應該也要好好紀錄食材、烹飪步驟和時間、成品和各種小撇步才是。
今年生日時，老公送了我一本收集食譜用的活頁夾，封面有漂亮的水蜜桃（大概是向我前些年常做的水蜜桃烤布樂還有我們今年新種的桃樹致敬），內頁也有相應的裝飾。我小時候最喜歡搜集這些可愛的文具，所以對這本活頁夾愛不釋手，決定一定要物盡其用。於是我開始一個字一個字地寫下多年來我所有招牌菜的作法。不寫則已，一寫才發現，原來最強的記憶真的不如最淡的墨水，許多我原本以為還記得的食譜，還是要靠一些網路上的資料和以前拍的照片才能補充完整；有一些網路上標記的食譜，我更是壓根兒想不起來。（不得不佩服老公的高瞻遠矚，看來我已經要到記憶力開始退化的年紀了，所以他才送我這本活頁夾，讓我未雨綢繆，免得我以後再也做不出自己的拿手菜。）寫著寫著，筆尖流淌出的彷彿不是藍色的墨水，而是色彩斑斕的回憶：第一次和媽媽一起做鳳梨酥時的笨手笨腳、某次用香草味的杏仁奶做菠菜鹹派，老公（當時還是男朋友）一言難盡的表情、以前連著六年感恩節都要和朋友們一起做的火鴨雞，還有最近剛讓我在朋友的喬遷聚會上大出風頭的普羅旺斯燉菜……每一則食譜背後都是無數繽紛的回憶。三十張活頁紙一下子就寫完了，我想我應該再多買一些活頁紙在家裡備用，這樣以後看見喜歡的食譜就可以順手記下來。下次回台灣，也希望我能找到媽媽的那本索引卡食譜，讓我能把她更多的手藝留在人間。
I enjoy cooking and baking. Perhaps this runs in the family: my grandpa is from the north and has a way with dough and flour-based dishes; my grandma cooks excellent Hakka food – before I became a vegetarian, I always had to eat her white-sliced chicken with Hakka orange sauce every time I went back to Taiwan; even though my parents were busy working when I grew up, they almost always cooked at home for us. Mom was a master of classic Taiwanese dishes, and Dad loves to recreate delicacies that he once had elsewhere in our kitchen; my little brother is the most impressive one – he studied culinary in high school and college, and apprenticed to Michelin chefs after graduation. He started a restaurant with his friends afterwards and managed to fetch the Michelin Plate just one year after the restaurant opened. Although he switched careers earlier this year, he continues to leverage his incredible skills to cook delicious dishes for our family. I am the worst chef in my family. When I was in Taiwan last year, I accidentally burnt some rice because I didn’t know how to use our clay pot, so my dad subtly asked me to not cook at home anymore before going back to the US. Even so, just like everyone else in my family, I still love to bring joy and warmth to everyone around me with the dishes I make.
Compared to my mom, who started to cook for her family when she was six, I learned how to cook relatively late. It started with some casual attempts in my home economics classes during my first year of high school, and then I began to learn how to bake from my mom. The pastries and desserts I learned to make during this period turned out to be some of my most iconic dishes among my friends in the US. I didn’t learn to cook seriously until the summer after I graduated from high school. My mom was worried that I would starve in the US, so she spent two months teaching me basic culinary techniques as well as how to make some of her signature dishes before I went to college. In college, I majored in chemistry. I learned how to plan experiments, weigh, mix, and heat ingredients, and I brought these skills into the kitchen. To me, the kitchen is just like a chemistry lab, except the outcome is delicious. Every summer, I had to stay off-campus and cook for myself, so I had plenty of opportunity to practice cooking, and I eventually developed my own cooking style. In graduate school, I cooked for myself every day. In addition, for poor graduate students with a lot of time, house parties and potlucks are among the most popular social events. After many years of potlucks, I have accumulated my own collection of “Steve’s famous dishes.” (I think I am lucky to be in the US so that I can impress my friends with my cooking. If I take the same skills to Taiwan, my family is probably unwilling to let me cook.)
Recipes are very important to cooking. Although I have cooked for many years, I never systematically collected or organized my recipes. My mom had a small index card binder filled with recipes in her beautiful handwriting. When I was cooking or baking with her, I basically just followed her commands and did not have to think much myself, so I never felt the need for recipes. In the US, I usually don’t need recipes for the dishes that I am proficient in making, such as pineapple cakes and scallion pancakes. Occasionally, I will bring a post-it with the quantity of ingredients to the kitchen, but that’s about it. It is also very easy to look up recipes online. If I find interesting recipes on the internet, I will bookmark them. For good recipes worth repeating, I can usually memorize them after several tries. If I forget something, it is very convenient to go back and find my bookmarks as well. Therefore, there was no motivation to collect my recipes systematically. Now that I think of it, writing recipes is just like documenting experiments in a lab notebook. When I used to work in a lab, I always wrote down the chemicals, experiment setup, steps, time, and results for every experiment I ran in great details. In the kitchen, I should probably have done a better job documenting ingredients, cooking time and steps, the final outcome, and tips I discovered along the way.
Steve gave me a recipe binder for my birthday this year. The cover and recipe sheets are decorated with cute peaches (I am assuming this is a nod to the plum cobblers I made a few year ago and the peach tree we planted together in our backyard). When I was little, I loved to collect cute stationaries like this, so I am really excited about this gift and decided to make the best of it. I started to write down the recipes for “Steve’s famous dishes” through the years. It wasn’t until I started to write things down did I realize that the faintest ink is indeed more powerful than the strongest memory. There are many recipes that I thought I remembered, but ended up having to rely on the internet and some old pictures to fill in all the details. As for some bookmarked dishes, I didn’t even remember making them before until I saw the recipes again. (I admire Steve for looking so far ahead. He must have known that I am coming to an age where my memory is starting to deteriorate. This binder will help make sure that I can still make all my dishes in the future.) Writing down my recipes brought back a lot of nice memories: my clumsiness when I made pineapple cakes with my mom for the very first time, Steve’s interesting facial expression when I made a spinach quiche with vanilla almond milk instead of regular milk, all the fun I had with Team Turducken making turduckens six years in a row, and the ratatouille that was very popular at Yifan and Denys’ BBQ party recently… etc. There are just too many happy moments behind each recipe. I filled up thirty pages of loose-leaf recipe sheets very easily. I should probably get some more sheets so that whenever I see an interesting recipe in the future, I can just write it down and add it to my collection. Next time when I go back to Taiwan, I hope I can find my mom’s index card book, too. This way I can keep more of her cooking in the world.
