Amidst The Stars

The Moon

  "Another dessert?"

  His folder in hand, rapidly flipping through yellowed pages, Yao snapped, "aiyah, why do you make that sound like a bad thing?"

  "It isn't," Vicente said. "It's just that we already added osmanthus jelly to the menu last Saturday. Isn't it a little too soon to add something else?"

  "It's not a permanent addition." Yao shut the folder and placed it back onto the dining table. "You only have to suffer through making something new for the first two weeks of October, then we remove it from the menu and serve it again next year."

  He squinted at his brother. "What sort of dessert are you planning? There's no way we can serve something for only two weeks a year."

  Yao leaned forward, smiling slightly. "Do you remember what holiday's coming up in two weeks?"

  Vicente went through his mental calendar, jumping ahead to the sixth of October. "Are you talking about the Mid-Autumn Festival?"

  "Well, duh."

  "Nobody celebrates that in the West. Our customers will have no idea why we're serving mooncakes — assuming that's what you're planning to make."

  "Jia Lin ah, it's so bold of you to assume people will question the origins of a new dish. They'll just eat it, say it's good, leave a generous tip and leave." Yao said. "And if they do ask, we can just say, 'oh, this is something we eat during this thing called the Mid-Autumn Festival which we celebrated where we came from'. Easy as that."

  "All right, that's fair." He thought of the mooncakes he'd eaten all those years ago, the fist-sized treats that were sometimes stuffed with fudgy, smooth lotus paste and crumbly salted egg yolk, sometimes with flavourful custard that oozed out appetisingly from the middle of the mooncakes when they were heated up and cut apart. They were so filling that they could easily substitute a meal. Their parents had always bought them from stores. "But do you know how to make mooncakes?"

  Yao's smile turned sheepish at that. "That's an excellent question. I'm researching recipes that I can modify, and hopefully, I'll have something ready by the end of this month."

  "What type are you planning to serve?"

  "Not snowy mooncakes, that's for sure. I always thought those were overrated," he mulled. "I might only fill them with lotus paste since salted egg yolks cost too much. By the price they're sold for at the market you'd think they were made of diamonds! Is there any type you'd prefer to make?"

  "Not really," Vicente answered. "As long as I get to make them, I don't mind." Maybe Yao would decide to serve mooncakes with ice cream at the centre. Maybe he'd develop a recipe for mooncakes with a chocolate filling. Whatever he came up with, it would most definitely be an adventure to make.

...

  CRACK!

  The rolling pin smashed the plastic bag without mercy, breaking the rock sugar inside to pieces. Ling swung the pin a second time, hitting the bag again and again until the sugar was all but powder.

  "Is there something on your mind?" Vicente asked, watching her shake the now-pulverised rock sugar into a bowl and put another solid block of it into the bag.

  "No, nothing bad." Ling continued her ruthless assault, smacking so hard the table seemed to shake. The sound of the rolling pin hitting the sugar echoed throughout the entire apartment, deafening bang after bang as she cracked away. "Why do you ask?"

  "You're whacking the sugar really hard. Almost like it's a substitute for someone's face."

  "I'm not that vindictive." She turned the bag over and continued hitting. "It's just fun to watch the sugar crack into little bits. And it's fun to hit stuff too, I guess." Ling poured out the contents of the bag and popped a larger piece of rock sugar into her mouth. "Is that enough?"

  "It should last us until next Sunday." Vicente shook the sugar around in the bowl. "At least, it should be enough for tomorrow's batch."

  Ling pinched another chunk of rock sugar and bit into it. "You need to add more agar into those things, they always come out too jiggly."

  He thought about the suggestion. "I'll give it a try," he promised. "And remember to brush your teeth."

  She snorted derisively. "Okay, Dad." Ling polished off the rest of her sugar and ran off.

  While his sister went back to her room, Vicente carried the bowl down to the kitchen in Huang's. He took jars of agar, wolfberries and dried osmanthus flowers from their cupboard and ran to fetch a pitcher of water, then a saucepan.

  While melting a few strips of agar in the boiling water, he poured out some of the crimson wolfberries onto a plate, and beside it went the pretty yellow osmanthus flowers. The kitchen was silent save for the sound of simmering water; not even the noise from cars outside managed to make its way in. It was Vicente's favourite time of day, no doubt — nothing could ever beat the tranquillity of cooking alone at night when he wasn't nervous from the hustle and bustle of work.

  Once the agar melted, he poured in a handful of the rock sugar and stirred, watching as the golden-brown chunks slowly dissolved into the hot water. The wolfberries and dried osmanthus went in next, and not long after the mixture started simmering, he began to smell the fragrant, delicate perfume of the little golden flowers.

  The jelly was then left to set in the refrigerator. While he waited, Vicente tended to the saucepan, hooking it back onto the wall once it was clean and dry. He stepped out of the kitchen for a moment, looking out of the restaurant windows and at the streets. The night was illuminated only by the harsh glow of streetlamps. He could barely make out the stores and cars that were usually so clear to see in the daylight.

  He must've spent too much time staring rather blankly out the window, as the next thing he recalled was his phone's timer beeping. Vicente went back inside and inspected the jellies. He popped one out of the mould and placed it carefully on a plate. He tried it, realising wasn't as soft or wobbly as before, thanks to the extra agar he'd added, but thankfully that didn't make the jelly any less sweet. The wolfberries scattered throughout added surprising bursts of tartness and its redness stuck out from the otherwise pastel-coloured jelly in bright spots.

  As he ate, he started thinking of a dessert he'd tried two days ago — a slice of warm, rich black-cherry clafoutis Madeline had made and shared with him. Like the osmanthus jelly, the sweetness of the clafoutis was cut through with sharp black cherries, and those berries had stood out among the otherwise-unassuming beige crust. But the similarities between the two desserts ended there; the fluffy, custardy flan Madeline had whipped up that day was nothing like the jelly he just made.

  Vicente finished the rest of his jelly and washed the plate. Somehow, every other thought led to Madeline these days. It was probably normal, for someone to think about the person they had feelings for a lot, and to smile while lost in those thoughts, but he wasn't at all used to having someone who wasn't his siblings on his mind so often. He'd only known Madeline for nearly two months, it had to be weird to like and constantly think of someone he'd been acquaintances with for such a short time.

  The dull, blurred reflection of his face in the tap revealed that he was blushing. So that was why he suddenly felt heated-up. Vicente sighed, splashed his face with water from the sink and ran back upstairs. Maybe those thoughts would disappear with sleep.