Saturday’s with Dad

I’ll never forget spending Saturday mornings with my dad. First we’d go to my grandfather’s house for breakfast. We ate Jok and that’s no joke! Laughing aside if you didn’t already know, “Jok” is Asian rice porridge with meat and bean curd garnished with green onions and peanuts. After breakfast, we’d drive out to this bar he helped manage. That’s where I first learned to count, do basic math, and understand simple bookkeeping. I’d count out stacks of money and wrap them in paper bindings for him to deposit at the bank. He’d also check inventory against sales receipts and logs.

Then we’d go do our weekly grocery shopping, something that he was an expert in having come from a family that was once in the grocery business. This was the 1990’s in Phoenix, Arizona; the days before Amazon and Walmart Super Centers. Our first stop was always at an original Walmart store, for GM (general merchandise). That’s where we bought things like trash bags, toilet paper, dish soap, laundry detergent, shampoo, ect.

Then we would head over to Smitty’s grocery store for “Second Breakfast,” and yes I did steal that line from The Lord of the Rings. For only $1.99 you could get two eggs, toast, and bacon or sausage with juice or coffee. Smitty’s general manager famously said, “We have a lot of fun in our cafe. We don’t make any money in it, but it’s a lot of fun.”

At Smitty’s my father would buy the Arizona Republic Newspaper, glance at the headlines and find the ads. He taught me the concept of high/low pricing and the lost leader. He would plan the weekly menu based on what was advertised on sale. We would go to all the now extinct big name original hometown grocers: Basha’s, ABCO, Fry’s, and Smiths. These stores were originally all family owned. We’d buy in season fruits and vegetables, and whatever meats were on special that week. He’d let me pick out a few items too, things like cereal and strudel.

I’m really thankful for this experience growing up. It taught me how to shop and by watching I learned how to cook. Everyone in my family cooks and we all know how to cook anything. We have this inside joke about not telling people exactly everything that’s in some dish that they're enjoying. Don’t ask us how to make Crystal Shrimp. Trust me you don’t want to know. We say that, "We could probably serve you a shoe and if it’s seasoned and prepared right you’d probably eat it.”

My father had a very different experience than I did growing up. He is a first generation Chinese American from the Baby Boomer Generation. When he started kindergarten he didn’t know how to speak English. He was tutored and dedicated to his studies. He soon out-shined many of his other classmates.

His father owned a small neighborhood grocery store in the 1950’s when my father was born. In this time period Phoenix, Arizona started at the crossroads of Central and Baseline expanding outward from those coordinates. The families’ life revolved around that grocery store. They woke up, dressed for the day, then drove to the store. My grandmother cooked breakfast and dinner at the store for the family. There was even a bed in the back, just in case someone was ever sick or too tired.

The store was open seven days a week from 8:00 am to 9:00 pm. When it was time for the three youngest children to go to school a store employee would take them. When my father finished his day at school, he was expected to either be working on homework, stocking shelves, or running the cash register. That was the grocery store where my father first learned how to cut meat to work as a butcher. You should see him carve a turkey. He still knows his way around a knife.

Growing up, I watched my parents host both Thanksgiving and Christmas. They woke up early and as a team they put on a big production; something they had been doing since before I was born. Like my parents before me, my husband and I have now picked up the torch of preparing the meal. We cook for our family on big holidays like Christmas and the low key ones like Labor Day. Every time we go to the grocery store I laugh because my husband writes the list in the order of the aisles of the store just like my father did. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to walk into a grocery store without remembering my childhood.