A Taste of Home

French winters are always damp and cold, like a fine mist that silently creeps into your collar from the street corners and seeps into your bones. Twilight comes early, and the sky looks as if it has been splashed with ink, its weight heavy in the air. 

The plane trees lining the streets have long been freezing since shedding their leaves, their bare branches trembling in the wind, as if the pallid canopy was about to be pierced. The streetlights come on, casting a dim, yellow glow over the wet cobblestones, casting fragmented shadows of passersby that sway in the wind. The air is imbued with the scent of baguettes, cheese, and roasted chestnuts—rich, sweet, yet not hers. 

She huddles her neck and hurries back, her footsteps sounding lonely on the empty street. 

Is this “home”? She often asked herself. The cold wind howled and gusts next to her ears; her stomach was empty, yet her heart felt even emptier. Whenever she thought of the night markets in China, the kitchen at home filled with steam, she thought that the sky and earth here were so far removed from her life.

“Come and try some—they’re just out of the steamer!”

As she opened the door to the dormitory kitchen, a wave of warm steam washed over her, mingling with the familiar sweet aroma, enveloping her like a warm blanket. 

Her roommate, wearing thick heat-resistant gloves, carried out a steaming tray of red sugar buns from the steamer. The buns were round and plump, their skin tinged with the brownish luster of red sugar, and their surfaces still glistening with a fine layer of moisture.

Before she could sit down, her roommate eagerly tore open a bun and handed it to her, the steam immediately hitting her face. She bit into it, and the crust was soft, while the inside was fluffy like a cloud.

The brown sugar had melted slightly in the heat, becoming sticky, and the sweet aroma slowly filled her mouth. She looked up and saw her roommate staring at her, as if waiting for an answer: her roommate nodded vigorously and mumbled, 

“Delicious.” Her roommate's eyes curved upward, as if filled with light.

Homemade, delicious bun

The aroma of the steamed bun lingered in the room. Her roommate sat on the sofa flipping through her phone, occasionally glancing at the steamed bun on the plate, then casually asked, “Want another one?” At her feet lay an empty flour bag, brought back from the supermarket the previous day when the two had gone shopping for ingredients. That day, her roommate spent a long time choosing, finally saying, “I want something sweeter. If it's sweet, the house won't feel cold. It gives a… cozy feeling, should you get what I mean by that.”

The wind occasionally knocked against the window, but the room was quiet, filled only with the soft sound of the steamed buns being torn apart and their laughter, one high and one low. 

My roommate moved slowly but confidently, as if she were adding warmth to life. She said that afternoons like this were the most comfortable—no need to rush, no need to overthink, as long as you were there.

She said her roommate also made golden-yellow corn buns, soft and sticky purple rice cakes, and many other delicious treats she couldn't count. Every time the kitchen filled with fragrance, she knew happiness was creeping closer into her soul, inch by inch.

That was her happiness, infused with the scent of brown sugar.