With pieces of duck breast squished against my teeth, I remembered being ten years old at Applebee’s on a road trip with my father who at that time fed me copious amounts of meat and cheese, including the strip steak that he always allowed me to order at Applebee’s, to bring up my weight. I would whack into that strip steak with great whacks: it was medium-rare and tender, and I didn’t yet know what a calorie was, nor that upper thighs that rubbed together could ever be considered unsightly. Things have a way of coming full circle. Here I was at twenty-two years of age, tucking into another immense chunk of red meat, having come to the realization years ago that my upper thighs would always rub together and that people would love me anyway, whether or not thick thighs were in style.
I had come around to the kitchen as P. was just finishing up cooking those breasts, alternately skewering them with his temperature probe and shifting them around with his tongs, basting them one by one with the care of a father bird feeding his chicks. In the bubbling of the oil I heard the running bathwater of my early childhood “steam baths” with my own father, wherein he would sit on the lid of the toilet and I would sit on the floor as he read to me, both of us waiting for the running bathwater to warm up. But I didn’t remember all of this when sitting at P&S’s kitchen table. All that came through to me was the warm feeling in the back of my neck and that stiffening of hair follicles which occurs in response to such things as steam or a light touch. I sat there with my forehead resting on my arms as the number of breasts still on the stove, and their bubbling, dwindled by one fourth, then one third, then one half, then finally to zero as the last one made it onto the cutting board. For once, I did not mourn the end of the moment.
(2026-03-21)
Zoe Pian 