Excerpt from the anthology
Ludi, here's an excerpt
Kimchee
By Genevieve Fitzgerald
(“Kimchee” is taken from Genevieve Fitzgerald’s young adult novella, “Reclaiming Rosa”)
I remember once Rosa told me how she wished she had a normal family.
“Like whose?” I had asked her.
“Like yours,” she said so quickly, almost fiercely, like she was demanding it.
“Like mine?” I couldn’t believe it. I mean, I don’t think we’re weird, or anything, but I sure don’t think of us as a normal family.
That’s when Rosa told me a little bit about her family. Her mother has to sneak out of the house to go to English lessons because she wants to be more American, but her father doesn’t want her to learn. He wants her to keep all their old customs, and cover her arms all the time, even in summer, and walk behind him if they go shopping together, and if she spoke better English – well, Rosa wasn’t sure what her father thought, but it all seems just really mean to her mother. Plus, since he didn’t want her mother to learn, Rosa decided not to do her English homework. When she got her report card, he hit Rosa with a ruler across the palm of her hands for not doing well in English. It makes no sense. What’s worst, though, is the more Rosa learns to think in English, the harder it is to talk to her mother.
“So, you see, Sophie, even though we all live together, we’re so far apart. That’s not normal, is it?”
“Maybe I don’t know what normal means anymore,” I said to her, looking down at my shoes.
“You’re a lot of help,” she said.
“So let’s bake cookies,” I suggested, since our conversation was making me sad.
Mom wasn’t around, but she trusts us pretty much, so we went into our kitchen and started opening drawers and cabinets, looking for ingredients. It turned out we had no chocolate chips, and I couldn’t see wasting our time on cookies without chips in them. I sat down at the kitchen table, feeling a bit moody.
“I know,” said Rosa, “let’s make kimchee. I’m learning the recipe and my father will be so proud.”
After what she had just told me about the English lessons and the ruler, I was surprised Rosa wanted to do something for her father. But then I thought about the time I had found her hiding in the library, and I just shrugged. “OK.” Sometimes Rosa was a mystery. Her thinking didn’t always make sense to me. Like the normal family. Like the kimchee.
The kimchee: I couldn’t believe we made this. Spicy pickled cabbage. Rosa left me chopping cabbage while she ran back to her house for some spices. She brought them back in a plastic bag, so I’ll never know what was in there, but when we dumped the bag over the cabbage in the bowl, I sneezed. Then we heated some water and stirred in a lot of salt and poured that in and then Rosa gave me a funny look. “We need your pumpkin from the front stoop,” she said.
“What for?”
“We empty it out like a jack-o-lantern, but with no face, and we put the kimchee in there and bury it. For a week or two, I think. I forget how long.”
At first I didn’t believe her. This couldn’t be a real recipe. But she insisted.
I looked at the clock. Mom would be home soon and I didn’t want her to see this. It was a little too strange. “To hurry things up, let’s get Bo and Vic to dig the hole while we hollow out the pumpkin.”
I didn’t know what Rosa said to convince them, but they agreed, and even dug enthusiastically. Later that night mom found worms in Bo’s sink.
The kimchee sloshed in the pumpkin as we carried it outside and around to the backyard, to the hole.
I watched Rosa put it in. She was very serious. She was mouthing something. I couldn’t tell if it was a blessing or if she was just checking off ingredients in her head before covering up the hole. It wasn’t English. That much I could tell.
The next part was the weirdest of all. For the next two weeks, every day after school, we had to check on the kimchee. This is what we had to do: we had to lie on the ground and put an ear to the dirt over the pumpkin. It wasn’t a very deep hole, and Rosa said we would be able to hear it gurgle when it was done.
Every day we listened.
It was OK on warm days, but I didn’t want to help her the day it rained. I also didn’t want to help her the day Yvette was sitting on the back patio with her friends, all doing their nails.
Kimchee
By Genevieve Fitzgerald
(“Kimchee” is taken from Genevieve Fitzgerald’s young adult novella, “Reclaiming Rosa”)
I remember once Rosa told me how she wished she had a normal family.
“Like whose?” I had asked her.
“Like yours,” she said so quickly, almost fiercely, like she was demanding it.
“Like mine?” I couldn’t believe it. I mean, I don’t think we’re weird, or anything, but I sure don’t think of us as a normal family.
That’s when Rosa told me a little bit about her family. Her mother has to sneak out of the house to go to English lessons because she wants to be more American, but her father doesn’t want her to learn. He wants her to keep all their old customs, and cover her arms all the time, even in summer, and walk behind him if they go shopping together, and if she spoke better English – well, Rosa wasn’t sure what her father thought, but it all seems just really mean to her mother. Plus, since he didn’t want her mother to learn, Rosa decided not to do her English homework. When she got her report card, he hit Rosa with a ruler across the palm of her hands for not doing well in English. It makes no sense. What’s worst, though, is the more Rosa learns to think in English, the harder it is to talk to her mother.
“So, you see, Sophie, even though we all live together, we’re so far apart. That’s not normal, is it?”
“Maybe I don’t know what normal means anymore,” I said to her, looking down at my shoes.
“You’re a lot of help,” she said.
“So let’s bake cookies,” I suggested, since our conversation was making me sad.
Mom wasn’t around, but she trusts us pretty much, so we went into our kitchen and started opening drawers and cabinets, looking for ingredients. It turned out we had no chocolate chips, and I couldn’t see wasting our time on cookies without chips in them. I sat down at the kitchen table, feeling a bit moody.
“I know,” said Rosa, “let’s make kimchee. I’m learning the recipe and my father will be so proud.”
After what she had just told me about the English lessons and the ruler, I was surprised Rosa wanted to do something for her father. But then I thought about the time I had found her hiding in the library, and I just shrugged. “OK.” Sometimes Rosa was a mystery. Her thinking didn’t always make sense to me. Like the normal family. Like the kimchee.
The kimchee: I couldn’t believe we made this. Spicy pickled cabbage. Rosa left me chopping cabbage while she ran back to her house for some spices. She brought them back in a plastic bag, so I’ll never know what was in there, but when we dumped the bag over the cabbage in the bowl, I sneezed. Then we heated some water and stirred in a lot of salt and poured that in and then Rosa gave me a funny look. “We need your pumpkin from the front stoop,” she said.
“What for?”
“We empty it out like a jack-o-lantern, but with no face, and we put the kimchee in there and bury it. For a week or two, I think. I forget how long.”
At first I didn’t believe her. This couldn’t be a real recipe. But she insisted.
I looked at the clock. Mom would be home soon and I didn’t want her to see this. It was a little too strange. “To hurry things up, let’s get Bo and Vic to dig the hole while we hollow out the pumpkin.”
I didn’t know what Rosa said to convince them, but they agreed, and even dug enthusiastically. Later that night mom found worms in Bo’s sink.
The kimchee sloshed in the pumpkin as we carried it outside and around to the backyard, to the hole.
I watched Rosa put it in. She was very serious. She was mouthing something. I couldn’t tell if it was a blessing or if she was just checking off ingredients in her head before covering up the hole. It wasn’t English. That much I could tell.
The next part was the weirdest of all. For the next two weeks, every day after school, we had to check on the kimchee. This is what we had to do: we had to lie on the ground and put an ear to the dirt over the pumpkin. It wasn’t a very deep hole, and Rosa said we would be able to hear it gurgle when it was done.
Every day we listened.
It was OK on warm days, but I didn’t want to help her the day it rained. I also didn’t want to help her the day Yvette was sitting on the back patio with her friends, all doing their nails.
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