Eggs

Eggs are such versatile kind of food. It is common, speaks for comfort, is easy to fix and provides for an instant nutritious meal. I remember when I was growing up, my family always made eggs, whether they were cooked with noodles, egg fried rice, or the plain and simple tomato-and-eggs stir fry. My mother often told me the story of a basket of eggs for her when she was pregnant with me in China in the beginning of the '70's. There was no pregnancy counseling, no prenatal vitamins, no nutritional supplements. Food was very scarce for everyone at that time, let alone attention provided for pregnant women. In the middle of her pregnancy, my mother received a basket of eggs, wrapped carefully in towels and delivered by my uncle via a train all the way to Wuhan. It must have meant so much for her that whenever we talk about her pregnancy with me she would mention those 28 precious eggs with fond memories. Eggs are special to Chinese families.

Since living in the U.S, I have learned to make comfort foods such as egg salad sandwiches, hard boiled eggs and egg on toast (my friend Elizabeth's son calls it "egg-in-a-hole"). I discovered that Americans are just as crazy about eggs as the Chinese. Today a very special time with Mark's grandmother brought me the sentiment about eggs again.

We had spent today visiting Mark's grandmother, Emma, who is 104 and is living in a very well-managed independent and assisted-living community in Westwood, South of Boston. She has her own apartment since she moved in 11 years ago. She brought with her many of her furniture from her old house in Westerly Rhode Island, so the apartment is in a way a miniature version of her own house.

We had spent a good lunch time together at their Grille restaurant in the lower level. Then we went back to her apartment to help her get the new TV settled in her room, helped with a couple other small things around her apartment, chatted for a while and we were ready to come back to Hadley.

Mark turned on the TV in her room to try to show Grammie how to use the TV controller to search for channels. He came across the weather channel reporting about a huge tornado/hail storm that was happening on I-90, heading toward SE. We would be heading right through it if we left at that time. We decided to wait for a little while until the storm passed. I took the two kids downstairs for a walk so Mark could take a rest.

When we returned 30 minutes later, Mark and Grammie were sitting at the dinner table in her apartment having an early dinner together. Grammie suspected that the storm might cause power outage later so she wanted to have dinner early. I looked at the table. There was a jar of apple sauce, some saltine crackers, water, and the quick-and-easy life saver scramble eggs for all of us to share.

"We made the dinner together," Mark said.

"Mark made the eggs," was the correction from Grammie.

"This table can seat 5 people. Come sit down and eat." Grammie said. She had folded out the wings of the tiny table so my children and us can all fit around it.

"Finish the eggs, and I will make more." Grammie urged me. She pushed the last bit of eggs to Mark's plate and motioned me to eat more.

As I was enjoying the food, I was thinking in my mind, "this is exactly what I would have done -- making scramble eggs for something quick." In an instance it seemed like there is no cultural difference, no age difference, no geographical boundaries between us, but a familiar expression of love that I can identify around this table that seats 5. It was as if I was sitting in my own little apartment in Wuhan, China, having a similarly quick and simple meal with my family.

And we would serve eggs, of course.