Free Hot, Sour, Salty, Sweet by Sherri L. Smith Page A

someone else picks up and the ringing stops. Ana sighs. What if it's Chelsea? Or worse, what if it's Jamie? Her heart skips a beat.
    “Shush!” Ana's mother hisses. She's hovering nervously near the oven, a bowl of half-mixed white icing in her hands. “Don't you ruin this cake too.” She turns the oven light on and peers through the window for telltale signs of a fallen middle.
    “Sorry, Mom,” Ana whispers. Grandma White bustles over to the stove. The hot sweet smell of baking cake mixes weirdly with the salty and tangy scent of Grandma White's gumbo.
    Ana's mom shakes her head. She gives her icing a few more stirs. “Just don't shout, okay? Now, the timer's on, but if I don't hear it, just pull it out in twenty minutes. There's a cooling rack on the counter.”
    “Got it. I promise.”
    Ana's mom wraps the top of the icing bowl in plastic and kisses Ana on the cheek. “No tasting that. There's just enough to decorate the cake,” she warns, and scurries off to another task.
    On the stove, the broth for the lion's head is at a full boil. The smells of cabbage and pork float in the air. Ana's mouth waters.
    “Whoops, I'm supposed to be watching this.” She grabs a spoon and stirs the broth before covering the pot and lowering the flame. Fortunately, Nai Nai is on the phone.
    “No, who are you? You were at the graduation today? Did you graduate? Good, good.”
    Ana cringes. Someone from school. She looks around. Her dad sits at the kitchen counter, cutting radishes into roses. He shrugs when she catches his eye.
    “Hey, little bit.” Grandpa White comes through the back kitchen door with a plate of fried chicken. He waves a piece in the air. “I did what I could.”
    Ana shrugs and joins him at the table. There's not enough room there for making dumplings, and Nai Nai is not giving up the phone anytime soon. Funny, but now that practically the whole family's in one place, she's got someone else she'd rather talk to.
    “So, what is your GPA?” Nai Nai asks whoever is unlucky enough to be on the other end of the line in her ever-so-careful English. The way she says it, GPA sounds like a medical test rather than a grade-point average. “Not so good, but not too bad, either.”
    Oh God,
Ana thinks.
Please don't be Jamie.
    “Derby,” Grandma White says to Grandpa White, “I'm going to keep an eye on my gumbo.” She gives a meaningful look at Nai Nai's back. Ana rolls her eyes. Even Nai Nai wouldn't stoop to sabotaging the soup. Apparently, Grandma White's not so sure. “Can you take Sammy out back to finish that little project I told you about?”
    Grandpa White wipes some fried chicken crumbs from his mouth. “Come on, Sam. Your grandmother's got us painting again. Treats us like little kids,” he says in mock indignation.
    “I
am
a little kid, Grandpa.” The Samoan grabs Grandpa White by the hand and tugs him out the back door.
    Ana waits until they're gone, then sighs.
    “How's it going?” her dad asks from his perch at the counter. Ana shakes her head.
    “They'll be here in less than an hour. And I still have to do the dumplings, but I need the kitchen table. How about you? Where's our
lu bo gao
?”
    He doesn't bat an eye. “I'm working on it.”
    “Right, Dad. I can see that. With little radish flowers.”
    “These are for your grandmother. My dish needs no decoration. Simple and perfect, that's my motto.”
    Ana smiles. “Since when?”
    “Since I decided to make
mapo dofu
instead.”
    Ana laughs.
Lu bo gao
takes peeling and pounding at least a pound of turnip roots, but
mapo
is a stir fry—five to ten minutes of prep instead of five hours.
    Ana's eyes drift back to Nai Nai, still on the phone.
    “What about your parents?” she's asking. “What do they do?”
    Whatever they do, Nai Nai approves. “Okay, Chelsea. Bye.” She turns, nods at Ana and hangs up.
    “Nai Nai!”
    “Don't ‘Nai Nai’ me, now. I saw you forgot to turn down the lion's head. You want to eat good food, you have