Estelle Turner

yellow steaming sweet potatoes

my mother’s favorite snack is sweet potatoes. no matter where she goes or what she does a steaming hot sweet potato chases fleeting worries away that comes with the deep blue dark of the night when she sits alone on the table bone weary and tired brown eyes downcast. every two weeks boxes of purple sweet potatoes replenish—stick them in the oven peel the outer layer to unravel sweet yellow insides piping hot. american sweet potatoes aren’t the same as korean ones she would say. orange and tasteless they need brown sugar melted marshmallows butter and even then they lack the particular taste of mother’s box of korean sweet potatoes. they could be too sweet at times so each bite would be complemented with the sour spicy red tang of kimchi—fermented cabbages soaked in chili pepper red flakes fish sauce grated garlic spoonfuls of sugar a dash of salt—we’ve tried yellow steaming sweet potatoes in all kinds of ways—diced up fried with oil soaked in sweet syrup with a spruce of black sesame seeds sprinkled as pizza toppings melted with cheese baked into cake. still my mother—eomma I call her—likes them best simply roasted in the oven purple skin burnt black peel it off hot hot blow on fingers little by little as she sits on the chair sweat on her arms and takes a bite of steaming yellow fruit rolling it around in her mouth to keep the flesh from burning her tongue.