Lately, I’ve been thinking more about traditional Chinese, Vietnamese, and Thai (because I love Thai 🙂 ) meals at home. I think about all the dishes I probably took for granted that my mom, aunt, and grandma would make when I was little, and I’ve gotten some nostalgia for them. A lot of not so glamorous dishes that are considered home-style or home cooking are really what make up the bulk of a traditional Chinese, Vietnamese, or Thai family’s meals, and so I’ve been thinking about how to incorporate those elements into my week to week cooking. Since Kaia was born, I will be honest and say that our at-home meals, unless I’m expecting guests, tend to be a bit disjointed. I will make one Vietnamese dish, then have some Chinese-style dishes made, and then randomly throw in some Instant Pot dal or other quick lentil soup. I haven’t had a lot of time to think through what I want to make, how I will make it, and then how they will all form a semi-cohesively themed meal.

Since I discovered that I can get decently priced and good quality meat at Hong Kong Supermarket in Manhattan Chinatown, I’ve been thinking about all the home-style soups I could make. And one of them was opo squash soup. Opo squash is a common green-colored squash that is used in East/Southeast Asian cooking, and it’s commonly used to flavor soups. When it’s paired with chicken, pork, or shrimp, it takes on a really nice savory, subtly sweet flavor in the broth it’s in. It is hard to describe it accurately, but it’s a very savory, warming, and nourishing flavor that in my mind, sums up Asian style home cooking. I hadn’t had a soup prepared with it for ages, as I know my mom used to make it for us when we were growing up. So when I prepared it on Saturday evening and tasted the finished broth, it took me back to the flavors of my mom’s home cooking back in the day.

So it made me really happy when I showed Kaia the soup, and she immediately loved it. She ended up having three servings of it. I picked out more chicken pieces for her to eat, and she totally devoured them. And surprisingly, she did not hesitate to eat the squash; she probably had just as much squash as she did chicken! Every time she embraces a dish I cook, especially if it’s something that’s more home-style like what I grew up with, I feel like my heart just sings. I’m so happy to give her flavors from her cultures to love and cherish.