Slow Noodles: A Cambodian Memoir of Love, Loss, and Family Recipes

by Chantha Nguon

Women cannot wait for a man’s permission to survive.

Feel free to overcook the rice. Burn it even, black and crunchy around the edges. All the better, to forget the delicious things that came before. Forgetting will dull the ache of craving what no longer exists.

“You have to be equal now,” he told me, urging me forward. I walked faster. It turned out that I could keep pace with the men if I chose to. And I so chose.

My mother taught me that when you feel powerless, you can always find at least one thing to do, however small it may be.