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Nothing is worse than being woken up. Sometimes, it’s through an alarm that wasn’t annoying when you chose it, but somehow became the most annoying sound since. Other times, it’s your parents knocking on your door, telling you to wake up for school. While I hate waking up, for some reason, something is amusing about being woken up to cooking.

I grew up in Elk Grove, Sacramento, and for the beginning years of my life, that’s all I woke up to. I am a second-generation immigrant, so naturally, the sound of cooking wasn’t all I heard. Most of the noise of pots and pans clanking, while it competes with the fan over the stove, for the loudest sound was completely drowned out by my grandparents, mom, and uncle all screaming at the top of their lungs at each other in Cantonese (even if they were only saying something as simple as, “This tastes good”). I’m not going to lie to you and say I loved the sound of them screaming at each other, and listening to the knife hit the cutting board over and over was what made me happy when I woke up; rather, it was the combination of familiarity and nostalgia associated with those sounds. Every time I go back there, I hear those same sounds, smell those same smells, and eventually taste the same flavors.

I wiggle my way out of bed, and the closer I get to the bedroom door, the stronger the smells of the best authentic Chinese food you’ll ever taste become. My mouth fills up with drool like a dog, as I once crawled, and now walk down those same stairs from the bedroom hallway to the living room. I easily sit on the couch that once required all my might to jump up onto, and for just the slightest bit of time, I’m at peace, I’m back home. I sit there and soak up everything around me. Now, I look at my grandma’s altar, in the same spot where she used to serve me Chinese candy as an appetizer to freshly made dumplings and rice porridge. Eventually, I do everything in my power to get off that incredibly comfortable couch (almost as much power as it used to take me to get on the couch), walk to my grandma’s altar, pray, and then go have the best meal of my life. A meal made with the same sounds, holding the same scents, and definitely having the same flavors as when my grandma would make it for me when I was 3. I chat and laugh with my grandpa, we’ll play some Uno, I’ll work in his garden in the backyard with my little sister, and enjoy feeding his Koi fish. Then, I’m right back in bed, hiding under my sheets, listening to the sounds of a neighborhood through my open window as the fresh air keeps me cool, and I’m right back to my “utopia” the next morning.