Grandma's Wontons Reimagined

Chop, chop, chop, chop, chop... then scraping noise with the cleaver across the large wooden chopping block, followed by another rhythmic chop, chop, chop, chop, chop. Grandma would look through the kitchen window, sometimes speak to herself, then methodically repeat the process of chopping ingredients. Already, there were bowls each filled with ingredients - the water chestnuts, the dried orange rinds, the ginger, and the ground sirloin. On the counter, there were large glass jars of fermented lemons and dried orange rinds, as if she was some cultinary scientist mixing in secret ingredients that would give her dishes such marvelous flavor. She would then mix all the ingredients from the bowls together, crack an egg or two, then place the bowl on a the kitchen roundtable - the same round table that hosted decades of family gatherings and conversations - and us grandkids would then look like human robots, methodically wrapping wontons and lining them up on the cookie sheet. While grandma would start boiling the water and making chicken broth soup, we would count the number of wontons (aka addition chart, wonton style) to make sure the whole family had enough. Wrapping a wonton was like artfully wrapping a pillow in a blanket, with egg whites dabbed onto the wrappers to act as "glue" to hold everything together. There were numerous wonton memories growing up. From birthdays to celebrations - wontons had a delightful role to play in grandma's kitchen of wonders.

As grandma got older and beset with many health ailments, she soon was not able to cook. A couple years back during a visit, I had a chance to make wontons for her. As context, she used to make wontons with pork, but then she had to modify her recipe to just use beef due to my grandpa's health. I then further modifed her recipe to switch up the meat to chicken and add in corn, and freshly chopped cilantro and shiitake mushrooms. My grandma at the time was in assisted living and really missing her own cooking. While her shoes are still hard to fill - though my feet are technically larger than hers - I prepared the dish and held my breath as she tried them. She took more bites, inspected the dumplings, then ate some more. "How does it taste, grandma?" I asked. Mom was in the room and responded, "She can't hear you, you have to speak to her left ear!" I then repeated, "Hey grandma, how did you like the wonton?" Her face glowed, and she smiled with glee, "Yes, it's excellent!!!" I then asked mom if she liked them, to which mom responded, "I love it! You know I love it!!!"

What a priceless and winning moment! It turned out to be the last meal I ever cooked for grandma before she passed, and I'm so glad she was able to have such joy in taking part.

The wonton batter used to fill the wontons which I served to grandma

Fun times wrapping wonton dumplings. The columns and rows look like an addition table.

Example of the cooked wontons served to grandma