Egg Rolls

Anna Chu 

Sadie hasn’t cooked in a while, she realizes when she returns home at seven thirty at night with
too many groceries. The combination of her brimming tote and plastic shopping bags leaves red
indentations on her pale skin. But nothing can stop Sadie when she settles on a goal— not even
heaving like twenty-five pounds of ingredients up three flights of stairs to her new apartment.
She has gotten this far by brute force and wanting— and she doesn’t know how to stop.

Especially after eating out so many days in a row due to her new accounting job providing her
lunch every time she came into the office and no longer feeling guilty for ordering take-out with
her own money— Sadie craves the taste of savory, crispy, freshly fried egg rolls. Once she put
the name on her tongue, it half-satisfies her. She needs it in her hands, her mouth, her stomach.
Ordering egg rolls was a no-go in Northern Virginia— in any restaurant for Sadie, really, here or
at home in Minnesota. Sadie’s mom’s egg rolls were the best— and nothing could beat
homemade. How hard can it be? She has spent most of her life helping make egg rolls at home.

Early in, Sadie discovers she lacks a julienne peeler, and settles for hand-slicing the carrots and
taro into thin strands The repetitive movement of washing, scrubbing, peeling, chopping, and
slicing vegetables wears out her wrists and fingers. She learns, from watching a youtube video,
how to peel and devein shrimp because she rarely eats shrimp unless it was carefully concealed
in one fried form or another. Her bowls in her new apartment are also not large enough for all the
contents of the egg roll filling, and Sadie ends up splitting the filling into three separate bowls for
mixing. She files in her mind to order mixing bowls later. Carrying the bowl down from the
counter to the dining room chair to give herself leverage as she hand-mixes vegetables, shrimp,
pork, eggs, garlic oil, fish sauce, and other general seasoning together, the smell of raw egg roll
filling diffuses into the air. She breathes in deeply the familiarity of the meaty, eggy, potently
delicious smell.

For a moment, she is home. In a kitchen with three pots boiling on the stove, the kitchen sink
filled to the brim with dirty plates, cups, utensils, and even a bowl or soaking strawberries, and
there are bodies— everywhere— there’s no space to move in the kitchen with her sisters and
mom to either side of her. It’s caging, overwhelming. Sadie looks around her own kitchen
apartment, and finds that she has left behind a mess too— with cutting boards, knives, bowls,
green onion ends, egg shells, and vegetable skins everywhere. She needs to clean, right now.

Before leaving Minnesota, all Sadie wanted was to be left alone. Living at home meant there was
always someone in the kitchen or the living room, her mom was always yelling for her from
downstairs, she would always be cleaning up after someone, even her own bedroom wasn’t
sacred because she didn’t have a lock on her door, and sisters came in and out when they needed
someone to annoy. Her apartment is hers— something she loves so much. All the bowls and
plates in the kitchen are always in the same place, it’s okay for her to leave books on her

bedroom floor, her shoes are perfectly lined up and never missing in the closet by the front door,
even the hair in the bathroom drain is hers! There is never something she has to pick up or clean
because of her sisters or her parents. It is gratifying to only have herself to care for.
I wanted this, she thinks, I want this.

When she washes the final dish, she feels calmer, and resumes cooking— moving to her favorite
part: the actual rolling. After cracking and squishing the egg in the bowl to use as the seal, Sadie
pauses, standing in the middle of the kitchen, and realizes that without her sister, nobody peeled
the rice paper wraps. No matter, Sadie thinks. This part is easy too, only tedious.
It is nine pm when Sadie finally begins to roll.

She is so close to the end, her stomach grumbles in anticipation. As she rolls, and rolls, and
rolls— the egg roll filling doesn’t diminish and her shoulders ache from looking down. Sadie’s
hand works on muscle memory. She places the rice paper wrapper flat on the cutting board in
front of her. At home, Sadie would roll egg rolls with two of her sisters, crammed around the
island table in the kitchen. She spoons a dollop of filling in the corner nearest to her and folds the
corner over. She would take turns with her sisters, one of them stopping every now and then to
refill the egg wash, lay saran wrap over a finished layer of egg rolls in the aluminum tray, or to
take a snack break. Sadie folds the two opposite corners in and starts rolling the dollop upward,
keeping the shape tight. Back then, she and her sisters would complain about their aching
shoulders and the endless egg roll filling. She dabs her fingertips into the egg, and swipes it onto
the final corner of the egg roll, sealing it up. But their mom would be there too, taking up the
final step, double-frying it to golden perfection. Sadie lifts the egg roll up to the light.

Somehow, even with her craving, she hates what she’s doing now more because she’s alone.
Sadie shakes her head, washes her hands, and then turns on some music to buffer the silence.
Minnesota always left a dry feeling in her mouth. Middle of nowhere midwest. Why did her
parents decide to settle there after their immigration from Vietnam? She could admit they had a
good schooling system— but what else was there really? The coasts always got the new things
first, new trends, new restaurants, more culture— the midwest was always playing catchup.
Sadie was determined to shed her Midwestern Girl persona and become cultured. She didn’t
know where the culture was in Virginia yet, but she would find it! She’d set her mind on it.
Though it would have to be outside of work since her company insisted on catering only
increasingly bland American food. Minnesota is always the same, she thinks, Virginia is going to
be different.

By eleven pm, Sadie’s fingers are wet, cold, and red in the sink. She scrapes dried egg guts out of
her fingertips for a full minute before giving up for a moment. Behind her, the electric stove
slowly warms the oil in the black cast iron pot her mom gifted her when she moved away. Sadie