Mount Everest of Toppings

3 ¼ cup soy milk (770ml)    

You probably skimmed through that entire recipe, catching only the numbers and overlooking the lengthy, tedious recipe on douhua because let's be real—nobody actually reads recipes. Sure, you may look at the box occasionally to see how much oil you should put in the cake mix, but sometimes it's more fun to wing it in the kitchen and see where your culinary instincts take you.    

My Waipo always said, "wán dé kāixīn" or "have fun." A phrase she would repeat to me every summer before school started when the days were hot and draining, with sweat constantly dripping down my chin. The cicadas buzzed day and night as if they had nowhere else in the world to annoy besides Taipei. A month of staying here every year felt like a nightmare, with language barriers becoming a maze of words I'd never heard before; the subways' confusing red, green, and blue lines transformed into cryptic clues in the quest for direction as if I were in an Indiana Jones movie. The depressing nine months of rain in Seattle seemed preferable to the yearly one-month trip to Taiwan. However, throughout the trip's three weeks, on every Friday night, Waipo would make TBDHITW or "the best douhua in the world."      

Douhua is typically a simple dessert: so basic that the night markets could set a world record for how fast they can make it. The velvety smooth block of tofu drizzled in sticky ginger syrup, clinging to the rim of bowls and an arrangement of customizable toppings. I would flood the tofu with hundreds of toppings, from boba to crunchy JIF peanut butter, yet every douhua at the night markets never quite captured the taste of Waipo's.   

 In the summer of 2019, my brother and I went from store to store, collecting all varieties of the store's interpretation of this dessert. However, when we tasted all ten kinds, there was such a big difference between my Waipo's interpretation of douhua and other restaurants. Why? What made it so special? This isn't the old generic "I made it with love" type of rubbish; their distinct flavor felt so small, yet it loomed over me like a giant. "Why does your douhua taste so different? "I asked, but she always answered with a mysterious, "It's a secret."    

That summer, the day we left to return to the U.S., I embraced Waipo as she put her hands around me, the warmth of her body wrapped around mine like a Christmas present, with her scent of ginger drowning my body. She whispered in my ear, "my douhua is always good because I never follow the recipes. I always have fun with it." Her lips curved from one dimple to another as her radiant smile echoed through my head. She was right. There is no rule on the quantity of toppings or the ratio to make tofu. I can have fun with it.   

To this day, my mom scolds me for putting too much boba and condensed milk on my douhua, but I could care less about her criticism. Piling taro ball toppings, the douhua became Mount Everest, rising like flavor-packed peaks and ignoring the unspoken norm of maintaining an equal number of toppings as having too many would receive judgmental glances, a reminder that I'm no longer a child. As I navigate through diverse toppings, it reminds me that rules are meant to be broken. It's not meant for people to follow step by step but rather to have the free will to experiment. Just as "wán dé kāixīn" whispers through the cicada-filled days of a Taiwanese summer, it reflects in the layers of douhua I create. Not everything will fit everyone's taste; not everyone will have the same "toppings." The idea of the fusion of creativity and desire accompanies me wherever I stride—a journey of trial and error in finding the perfect number of toppings. With each spoonful of douhua, I remember that it's not just a traditi