Friday night, my husband and I were treated to shabu-shabu with my parents. It was an evening that brought me back to my cultural roots.

It’s customary in our culture to treat others when you come into money. You get a new job or a promotion, or in mom’s case, a Social Security check with the retroactive pay she qualified for after the new Social Security Fairness Act passed. While it is mostly about paying it forward, there’s a little bit of selfishness hidden in there. You won’t get more unless you give some.

We have our own Chinese/Taiwanese version of hot pot which was often a source of comfort when we enjoyed it at home. If you’re not familiar with this culinary delight, it’s basically a variety of vegetables, meats, and sometimes noodles that you cook in a pot boiling broth or water at the table. My mom would often have circles of fish cakes, thinly sliced beef or pork, cubes of tofu alongside a variety of mushrooms and other vegetables. The example below is pretty typical of the ingredients we might enjoy, although we usually had a clear broth at home.

I often crave it on a cold night, but the thought of chopping all those vegetables usually stops me. It was nice to go somewhere where all the chopping was done for you.