keannu
VIP Member
- Joined
- Dec 27, 2010
- Member Type
- Student or Learner
- Native Language
- Korean
- Home Country
- South Korea
- Current Location
- South Korea
Why did she say “today we have a sponge cake!” ? Just to console her daughter?
But can you make a sponge cake out of broken eggs?
mo3-48
ex) My grandmother’s kitchen was overflowing with food. She raised her daughters to keep an extra box and bottle unopened in the cupboard for every bottle and box that was in use. Although she died before I was born, I was raised by her eldest daughter to do this same thing. Absentminded as I am, I often find I have accumulated two or even three extras of anything in my house.
But this abundance did not mean that things were to be wasted. Everything was always used to the full. Even the tea bags were used twice. There is a family story told about my grandmother’s refrigerator. Her refrigerator was always full to the very edges and every shelf was put to use. Occasionally when someone, usually a child, opened it without sufficient caution, an egg would fall out and break on the kitchen floor. My grandmother’s response was always the same. She would look at the broken egg with satisfaction. “Aha,” she would say, “today we have a sponge cake!”
Befriending life is not always about having things your own way. Life is impermanent and full of broken eggs. But what is true of eggs is even more true of pain and loss and suffering. Certain things are too important to be wasted. When I was sixteen, just after the doctor came and informed me that I had a disease that no one knew how to cure, my mother had reminded me of this.
I had turned toward her in shock, but she did not cuddle or soothe. Instead she reached out and took me by the hand. “We will make a sponge cake,” she told me firmly. It has taken many years to find the recipe, the one that is my own, but I knew in that moment that this was what I needed to do.
But can you make a sponge cake out of broken eggs?
mo3-48
ex) My grandmother’s kitchen was overflowing with food. She raised her daughters to keep an extra box and bottle unopened in the cupboard for every bottle and box that was in use. Although she died before I was born, I was raised by her eldest daughter to do this same thing. Absentminded as I am, I often find I have accumulated two or even three extras of anything in my house.
But this abundance did not mean that things were to be wasted. Everything was always used to the full. Even the tea bags were used twice. There is a family story told about my grandmother’s refrigerator. Her refrigerator was always full to the very edges and every shelf was put to use. Occasionally when someone, usually a child, opened it without sufficient caution, an egg would fall out and break on the kitchen floor. My grandmother’s response was always the same. She would look at the broken egg with satisfaction. “Aha,” she would say, “today we have a sponge cake!”
Befriending life is not always about having things your own way. Life is impermanent and full of broken eggs. But what is true of eggs is even more true of pain and loss and suffering. Certain things are too important to be wasted. When I was sixteen, just after the doctor came and informed me that I had a disease that no one knew how to cure, my mother had reminded me of this.
I had turned toward her in shock, but she did not cuddle or soothe. Instead she reached out and took me by the hand. “We will make a sponge cake,” she told me firmly. It has taken many years to find the recipe, the one that is my own, but I knew in that moment that this was what I needed to do.
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