The Wedding Feast

My cousin got married last week, and in our family a wedding means food — a lot of food. Her mother and five aunts cooked for three days. The kitchen was so busy that the men were sent outside. I was sent to buy more rice. Twice.

On the day, there were forty dishes on long tables: three kinds of chicken, two kinds of fish, beef rendang that had cooked all night, vegetables, sambal, rice in different colours. Three hundred guests came. Everyone ate standing, sitting, walking.

By evening the tables were almost empty and everyone was sleepy. My cousin's mother sat down for the first time in three days. She looked at the empty tables and said, "Good. They were hungry." That, in my family, is what love looks like.