My mom came home the other day from the organic grocery store with a carload of about seven kilograms of raw nuts and dried fruits.
You know the mixed nuts and fruits you all like to munch on so much? Ma has calculated, and it’s so much cheaper to buy the raw ingredients in bulks and mix your own nuts! She exclaimed excitedly as she shoved the heavy bags into my arms the moment I opened the door for her.
Then she fired up the toaster oven, tied her dainty, embroidered apron from Japan around her waist and started roasting bags and bags of almonds, walnut, brazilian nuts and hazelnuts. The heated oven made it too warm and stuffy to hang around the kitchen so I scuttled away to watch reruns of Grey’s Anatomy until my mom yelled for me to take out the huge salad bowls to mix the stuff in.
The nuts were too hot to handle still so she made me sit down next to her and cut the dried figs and longans into tiny bite-size shapes. She was halving the roasted cashew nuts.
You know Ma, you can probably sell these stuff if you pack them into nice, attractive packages, I said idly as I popped a piece of fig into my mouth.
She shook her head mildly, her eyes still on the cashew nut she was carving into half. It’s not so easy to sell these organic stuff; there are a lot of competitors out there, and times are hard right now.
I know, but you don’t have to sell them in boring health food shops! Maybe if you set up a snazzy website and sell them online? Who knows right… I reached over to grab a couple of the cashew nuts she has yet to cut and slid them into my mouth. She narrowed her eyes at me disapprovingly, but did not stop me.
Mommy will only do these kinds of things for my loved ones. I don’t have the motivation to this for any other reasons, she explained.
She looked so earnest and content chopping up the nuts and mixing them into the enormous bowl that I could feel a tear sneaking its way out of the corner of my eye. Where does she find so much love in her to give? And wait, was that a gold halo hovering over her head?
I guess that’s why you can call these… love nuts, ya? She chuckled to herself, oblivious to the hilarity of what she’d just said till I bowled over with laughter. Slightly startled, she looked up from what she was doing to inquire what on earth had gotten into me.
In between heaps of uncontrollable snorting and giggling, I explained to her the many implications of a love nut.
To which she burst out laughing as well, till she decided to give one last attempt in disciplining her youngest daughter into a proper young lady and briefly chided me for thinking (and saying) such vulgar things.
Sorry ma, I apologized as I wiped away tears of laughter. Thank you for the love nuts.
Grown-ups say the darnest things. ROTFLOL.
