Sweet and Sour and Spicy | Previous Challenge Entry

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TITLE: Sweet and Sour and Spicy | Previous Challenge Entry
By Liz Zelie
06/05/08
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Sweet and Sour and Spicy

Every house smells unique. He came from a house smelling faintly of vinegar, from freshly canned pickles, and fruity, from the warm pies cooling on the screened porch. She came from a house smelling strongly of citrus cleaning supplies and homemade spicy meatballs. And when they came together, with a dash of sweet and sour and spicy scents, they made a home that smelled inviting and invigorating.

And it still smells that way. When I visit the home of my childhood, I smell the soy sauce and ginger leftover from my father’s wok. He often cooks elaborate Chinese dishes for visitors and egg rolls on Christmas Eve. Our guests inhale the fumes of water chestnuts and spicy orange beef which, in my mind, has become the smell of hospitality.

This goes hand in hand with the faint lemon and clean cotton scents that linger in the linen closet and bedrooms. My childhood refuge was always clean and orderly, but not harsh or sterile. My father’s cooking may have ushered in the visitors but it was my mother’s decorating and cleaning that made them willing to stay. And made them willing to confide in us and even hope again. For this reason, the cleaning products that so many wrinkle their noses at, will always speak to me of new beginnings.

The garage attic might smell musty to some with its cache of camping supplies, hornet’s nests, childhood treasures and sleds. But I see the rows of capes and crowns, swords and scenery, and remember the Shakespearean plays produced by my mother and smell the makeup mixed with sweat and anticipation that always pervaded opening night. To me, this will always be defined as the smell of creativity.

The best part of my home, where everyone lingers and relaxes, is the gardens that my father, the great gardener, so eagerly tends. Here the roses and lilies and bleeding hearts produce an intoxicatingly heady smell – overly sweet – when sniffed closely. From afar, the flowers smell of fresh air after a thundershower, of simplicity and, most of all, beauty.

Every house smells unique. To some, my house smells of ordinary school days and summer holidays. Of birthdays and family dinners and nights spent catching fireflies. And it does. But my family home also smells of hospitality and new beginnings, creativity and beauty. It is a reflection of the people within that home who, when they came together, with a dash of sweet and sour and spicy scents, created me.

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