This Mother’s Day, I’m Skipping the Flowers and Giving My Mom Handmade Shrimp Fritters Instead
I've spent a lifetime learning how to cook from my mom, and now it’s a gift to be able to cook for her.
Photograph by Kristina Cho
Despite my mom living many states away, I always feel like she’s right beside me in the kitchen. "What would mom do?" is often what I ask myself when I feel stumped on a recipe or when something isn’t quite tasting right. I hear her quiet, yet authoritative voice in the back of my mind telling me that I probably need to add a tiny bit of sugar or another tablespoon of oyster sauce to my stir-fry or to test the fry oil one more time with a pair of wooden chopsticks to see if enough tiny bubbles appear (if you see a lot of tiny bubbles, the oil is hot enough).
You can always count on my mom, Wanda, to make you a meal to remember. Family dinners, holiday feasts and birthday parties were always held at our house because my mom knows how to feed a crowd. She can single-handedly prepare a spread of crispy fried chicken, expertly-rolled spring rolls, glossy mapo tofu and tender braised oxtails for 20 people all within her modest kitchen and without breaking too much of a sweat. I would watch her move about the kitchen during these cooking marathons in awe of her efficiency and fluidity in knowing exactly what needed to be done next. Eventually, I started to assist her in the kitchen in the best way that I could, trying to get into the groove of her workflow without getting too much in her way.
During the week, when it was a little less chaotic, helping her with dinner prep felt like my own private culinary education. She taught me at a young age how to handle a Chinese cleaver and made it seem less intimidating and more like an incredibly versatile kitchen tool. My mom patiently showed me how to confidently rock the blade back and forth on the cutting board, making sure to tuck my fingers back so I don’t lose one, and precisely cut green onions into even rounds. Then there were the things I learned from her that she didn’t need to put into words, like how preparing someone’s favorite meal is a clear way to say "I love you."
When I first moved away from home and started college about 4 hours away, I called her up on a weekly basis to ask her how she made her steamed eggs or black bean and garlic salmon because I missed the taste of her food! These inquiring phone calls only intensified when I moved even further away to San Francisco a few years later. I’ve since made a career out of developing recipes that draw from my culture and upbringing, all of which is built upon the foundational skills my mom instilled in me in the kitchen while I was growing up.
I am the cook I am today because of my mom, but I also embrace the fact that I do things a little differently. It took moving far away from my family to develop my own unique style of cooking. In the last few years, I’ve had the pleasure of teaching my mom new recipes whenever she comes out to visit me in California; my grandma’s joong (sticky rice wrapped in bamboo leaves), mooncakes filled with red bean paste and honeyed pistachios, and Vietnamese fresh rolls with plenty of shrimp and fresh mint from our yard are some such examples.
I also pay extra attention whenever me and my mom go out to eat because I’ll add dishes she loves to a list of recipes I’ll eventually make for her one day. Her favorite appetizer of all time is fried shrimp in any form, so this year for Mother’s Day, I developed a Japanese-style shrimp and corn fritter recipe loaded with chives and onions because who wouldn’t want to be gifted a platter of golden fritters? My mom is the hardest person to get presents for because she always says she has everything she could possibly need. However, she’s always delighted when I teach her a new recipe and I think it’s one of the greatest gifts I could give to the woman who has given me so much.
Kristina Cho is a James Beard Award winning cookbook author and food blogger (@eatchofood) based out of the San Francisco Bay Area.
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