The Family Recipe Quotes

“Five pounds of crawfish in a metal bucket were soon placed down. The smell of lemongrass, Old Bay seasoning, and fish sauce hit the siblings all at once, and they breathed in the familiar, comforting scent. The coalescent beauty of a Viet-Cajun seafood boil was the magnum opus of the American South.”
― Carolyn Huynh, The Family Recipe

“It was as if every Asian in Houston was here now, with plastic gloves on, breaking apart crab legs, crawfish, mussels, and clams in quick succession. A volcanic eruption of gossip, laughter, parental lectures, and roasts and jabs at their children dominated the restaurant, while garlic noodle slurpers and the squeaky sound of mussels being eaten played in tandem all around them.”
― Carolyn Huynh, The Family Recipe

“Like a clown car, they excitedly filed into a single line and followed the server straight into the bustling lunch crowd at Crawfish & Beignets. It was the siblings' neutral zone, a place where no fighting was allowed.
Except this time felt more like the Last Supper.
Seafood boils were a staple of their childhood, reminding them of all the best parts of being Vietnamese American in the South, and none of the bad. Though unspoken, the migration of the Viet-Cajun boil always lingered over them, reminding them of its roots in Louisiana, from other Vietnamese folks who resettled in Houston after Hurricane Katrina, and the resiliency that came with it.”
― Carolyn Huynh, The Family Recipe

“Which came first—the karaoke machine or Vietnamese fathers?”
― Carolyn Huynh, The Family Recipe

“Nothing felt easy anymore, it was only just a continuous struggle. How does one see light when it’s eternally midnight?”
― Carolyn Huynh, The Family Recipe

“Jane wondered if her mother knew how much damage she had inflicted on her and her inability to find her own happiness.”
― Carolyn Huynh, The Family Recipe

“she began to yearn for their time together again, to start over, and to try to build a different type of family, one that wasn’t steeped in trauma.”
― Carolyn Huynh, The Family Recipe

“Diaspora children were oxymorons; they belonged but also didn’t belong, and no matter which way the pendulum swung, they were still tourists at the end of the day, visiting a country they had no real connection to.”
― Carolyn Huynh, The Family Recipe

“A beautiful mix of English and Vietnamese could be heard from every corner of the room.”
― Carolyn Huynh, The Family Recipe

“Were we even living? We were women working at the crab factory, stuck in a Podunk town in Texas, where our small lives were made even smaller by the prejudice around us. I didn’t want any trouble; I just wanted to keep my head down, and grieve for a Vietnam that would never be mine again. I’m still allowed to grieve for an alternative life lost, am I not?”
― Carolyn Huynh, The Family Recipe

“It wasn’t fair. None of it was. And yet, the punishment never fit the crime when it came to the public lashing of women.”
― Carolyn Huynh, The Family Recipe

“He watched as the Klansmen waved shotguns in the air. How strange, what freedom meant in this country, how only certain people could wave guns with abandon without repercussions, even though everyone was allowed to own them.”
― Carolyn Huynh, The Family Recipe

“Corporate America had always made her want to gag. She was certain there was a smell to it. It wasn’t just a regular office smell of floor wax and sanitized air; it reeked of depression—like old wet laundry that had mildewed because one had forgotten about it and didn’t put the load in the dryer in time. It smelled like no one had any control of their lives.”
― Carolyn Huynh, The Family Recipe

“as refugees, the only skills they had to try to make money was through food, and how they had to sell their sandwiches for dirt cheap compared to other American food, despite the labor behind a three-dollar sandwich. But that was how they were seen their entire lives: less than, cheap, economical.”
― Carolyn Huynh, The Family Recipe

“In reality, no marriage was beautiful back then. All anyone knew was hardship; joy was reserved for the next generation.”
― Carolyn Huynh, The Family Recipe

“Historically, Jane never had fun—it was the curse of the eldest daughter.”
― Carolyn Huynh, The Family Recipe

“no one would ever blame the man; it was always the woman who shouldered the burden. No one was going to come to her aid. They’d drag her through the streets instead,”
― Carolyn Huynh, The Family Recipe

“New money plagued the city, but this wasn’t new. It plagued every city she ever lived in. It was an airborne disease. From Toronto to London to Atlanta, she had seen cities succumb to the same style, catering to only the rich and unattainable.”
― Carolyn Huynh, The Family Recipe

“Con," he said quietly. "I know a thing or two about tipping the scale of love-- how one person can love the other person more, and you wait your whole life for the scale to balance out, but it never does. It just never does. But you don't even care, you're just happy to be on the same scale. And all you can do is wait. And you do wait.”
― Carolyn Huynh, The Family Recipe

“And Georgia, my youngest, had decided to stay in Vietnam and explore the country more. She wanted to see how far she could go before she missed home. Perhaps that was just a marker of youth, to go as far as possible. I told her to go to the edge of the universe, and to do a big U-turn back to me one day.”
― Carolyn Huynh, The Family Recipe

“It angered her all her life that immigrant food always had to be cheap. Tacos, papusas, dumplings, pho, gyros, kimchi, pad thai... she could keep going. These were all foods worthy of double digits. Of dignity.”
― Carolyn Huynh, The Family Recipe

“Henry was childhood personified: Maggi seasoning drizzled over sunny-side-up eggs, a warm baguette, white rabbit candy, paper lanterns during the mid-autumn festival”
― Carolyn Huynh, The Family Recipe

“A roar of relief and belts of glee united the siblings. They rushed past the other Trầns, gloating. Like a clown car, they excitedly filed into a single line and followed the server straight into the bustling lunch crowd at Crawfish & Beignets. It was the siblings' neutral zone, a place where no fighting was allowed.
Except this time felt more like the Last Supper.
Seafood boils were a staple of their childhood, reminding them of all the best parts of being Vietnamese American in the South, and none of the bad. Though unspoken, the migration of the Viet-Cajun boil always lingered over them, reminding them of its roots in Louisiana, from other Vietnamese folks who resettled in Houston after Hurricane Katrina, and the resiliency that came with it.”
― Carolyn Huynh, The Family Recipe