I came home to the smell of grilled meat. It was home and I knew it. My first semester away from home should have been tougher than it was, at least in terms of homesickness. Instead, I was making new friends, exploring a small campus within a grand city, and, of course, there was always the ever-looming work that kept me occupied. I’d be lying if I said that I had spent large amounts of energy thinking about home, but now I breathed in what felt like home. It was the smell of grilling meat, most likely pork. It smelled like nostalgia. I knew that it would be there. My mom had hinted at it the last time when I had called them, not more than three days earlier. I love my parents and they love me equally as dearly, but they also really love to remind me of that fact and, on occasion, of the many things that they go through for me. However, this didn’t require much of a reminder. I knew and I appreciated it deeply.

My mom had picked me up from the airport. When I walked in, my dad was wearing a white lab coat and making last minute preparations for the dishes. Yes, my dad is a scientist. No, I don’t know why he was wearing a lab coat. Well, that’s not true. The scientist coat is what he usually wears when he cooks. It's a simple substitution for wearing an apron, but if you were to ask me why he wears a lab coat instead of an apron or another cooking-clothing option, I really would not be able to give you an answer. It was one of the many strange things that my parents did and which I had come to stop questioning. It was also one of the many things that I looked forward to whenever I came home.

I dropped off my bags, drank a cup of water, and changed into sweatpants and a t-shirt that was a size or two too big. Finally, I plopped into the kitchen chair. There isn’t a dining area in my house. Instead, a round table is set up in the tight little kitchen. It makes the smells more present. The smoke chokes slightly more, but it’s worth it.

At the table was a table of 腊肉 (Làròu). The word literally translates to as "bacon." In reality, they’re both pork dishes and that is pretty much where the similarities end (some may even argue that bacon is hardly a dish). Regardless, làròu is prepared at least a day in advance. The meat is soaked in soy sauce, as well as a variety of other sauces that I am not aware of, pepper, and salt. The sauce takes over an hour to prepare (assuming that you don’t count the time that it takes to shop for the various items). It’s left overnight to marinate and then grilled for several hours. The result is then cut into small wedges and stir-fried with some vegetables, perhaps onions. In short, it isn’t just thrown on a plate and left to sit for a couple minutes.

The smell is lovely. It’s something to appreciate every time when I come home and it's certainly something to be missed after a semester away. As I’m digging through piles of pork, onions, and rice, my parents mostly watch as I eat. They occasionally comment on how skinny I am. It's probably a cultural thing, but I hardly have the knowledge to substantiate this claim. They attribute it to stress. At this point, I’ve accepted that it’s how I am because of some force of nature, whether it's evolution or God. I stop wolfing down food for a second as I start to get full. I take it in, the small little table in the semi-cramped kitchen, the slight smell of smoke, and my dad wearing his awkward lab coat. Then, I turn back to the làròu. The taste is even better than the smell.