The Conch Girl Project
Recipe for Juanita B’s Kitchen:
Hand-Pulled Scallion Chicken, Pan-Fried Veggies, Orange Cake
06–24–2023
Ingredients
- A pleasant conversation between two strangers on a train from Virginia back to New York.
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Even though you saw some photos of the kitchen before your visit, you still need three minutes to be in awe of such a beautiful space, and one minute to calm down.
- A kitchen of abundance, in materials, time, affection, and life. The spacious kitchen is symmetrical with two operational countertops separated by a dining table in the middle. Two pulled-out pantries across the room, separated by a fridge that comes with two doors. There is a door to a patio. The flowers are fiercely blooming.
Steps
- Put on your most serious dress for this kitchen.
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Spend 10–15 minutes to be lost in the abundance. This is by far the prettiest and most stocked kitchen you have ever been in. It’s like a dream that you never dare to dream. You want to use as many things as you can, live as much life as you can in a couple hours, but that creates confusion and stress and makes it difficult for you to decide what to make.
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Read everything you can read. Postcards on the wall, recipes pinned up, brands in the fridge, labels in the pantry. So many things you have never seen before. Some you only saw in vintage stores and flea markets but never imagine them appearing in a collective, practical way.
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Break a glass in excitement, and later write an apology in the note you leave.
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In the end you decide to make things that you are most familiar with. Chicken, because “no chicken, no feast” in Cantonese. Veggies, because there will always be a green leafy dish on the table or your mother will refuse to eat. Orange cake, because that’s the no-brainer bakery goods you make a dozen times after moving here.
- Spend way more time than you plan and wish time can be slower.
Juanita’s Response
She showed up at my door wearing an elegant black dress and red shoes. When I had met her, on a train from Virginia, she was dressed like a college student, in jeans and a hoodie. Now she looked like a party. A party that matched my kitchen!
I was so excited. When I had gone food shopping to get ready for her visit, I’d wanted to buy everything. Since she was going to be taking pictures, I was thinking of colors. Red tomatoes. Green bok choy. Purple eggplant. Since she was going to be cooking, I was thinking of tastes. Mushroom. Ginger. Scallions. It was so hard to decide. What would she most like to cook? Chicken? Pork? Scallops? I wanted to buy everything. I wanted to give her endless options!
It never occurred to me to keep it simple, or that it would be harder for her to decide what to make if there were lots of choices. So I just kept piling things in my shopping cart!
I love my kitchen. I love coming home to it with my groceries and placing a bowl of bright yellow lemons on the table. I love the tiny touches that are mine alone, the items that all have a story and that make me happy. The old red scale. The tarnished sugar bowl from my mother. The P&G tea that friends brought me from England. The black and white striped napkin rings.
She came in, she cooked, she left her offering on the kitchen table. My son and I, hungry and listening from upstairs for her departure, barely heard her creep quietly out of the house.
A long time passed after her visit. I didn’t hear anything about the photos, and wondered if she had grown tired of the project.
When the photos did finally arrive, I was so touched. When the Conch Girl came into my kitchen she didn’t just look at it. She really saw it. She saw the colors. She saw the love. She saw the tiny details. I felt like she saw me.