【推荐1】My sister Karin is seven years older than me. When she was in high school, she loved drawing. And she was quite good at it. Every time she drew at home, I’d watch.     1     But I didn’t have the natural talent that she had.

    2     When I tried drawing and made some poor pictures, she told me that they were good. Surely, I didn’t believe her. But what she said was enough to keep me going. I only wanted the chance to sit at the same table with her while we were drawing.

With time going by, Karin created many beautiful drawings that were added to the walls of the guest room.     3     I knew they paled (相形见绌)in comparison to hers though I made progress. But she comforted me. So 1 kept practicing in her company and later alone when she went to college and moved out on her own for good.

It was strange to be without my older sister’s company. But I still had the love of art because of her encouragement. Sometimes, I could imagine her sitting across the table working, too. It was a comfort in this emptier house. I kept making progress every day.     4    

As Karin moved further into adulthood, she had fewer and fewer art projects of her own.     5     Then she left art behind. However, she still encouraged and supported me. Thanks to my sister Karin, I have become a famous artist now.

【推荐2】It was our first Thanksgiving in the new house, and I wanted everything to be perfect. However, my husband just got a new job in retail, so our family “plan” for everyone to take part in the necessary prep work had been torpedoed. To make matters worse, a key project for me that week had claimed two days of planned vacation. John Lennon was right: Life is what happens while you are making other plans.

By Wednesday night, while my husband was selling camping equipment as Christmas gifts, my children and I were at home and into full-blown vacuum mania (吸尘狂潮). I was thankful that a kid’s pocket money did not make up salary as I put my six and eight-year-old to work, going against all child labor laws. For my part, I was as busy as a bee in the toilet bowl, heading for a breakdown.

I don’t remember what my son asked me as he was trying his best to finish the vacuuming, but I do remember twisting into that mean-and-tight mom face before barking out a rude answer. Instead of dashing out of view, my second-grader turned off the vacuum and walked the whole way around the stairwell to face me. He never said a word. He just wrapped his arms around me for a hug that made me feel ashamed of myself to this very day. My son took a risk to teach me that sometimes we need a hug most when we are least huggable.

It was the perfect Thanksgiving. The people I loved gathered around my table where a pumpkin covered up last year’s gravy stain (肉汁污渍). We dined on just one choice of pie, and my dad used a mismatched dinner fork without complaint. My daughter drew a picture of us on a paper plate where no one had their eyes closed.

I learned a lot from an eight-year-old that holiday, and I’ve tried hard to remember it. If you find a person complaining about her job or her dress size, give her a hug. It just might be what she needs most.

【推荐3】Franco Bergamino is like a surprise “hidden recipe” among young people in southwest China’s

Chongqing Municipality, where the 62-year-old Italian chef runs a dessert house called Mimosa.

The dessert house serves wine jelly with green pepper cheese, jasmine mousse and peach-Oolong cake—fusion (融合) desserts that combine Italian specialties with local Chinese ingredients (原料).

Bergamino used to run two dessert houses in his hometown of Turin, both having a history of 90 years. In 2016, he settled in Chongqing and set up a dessert workshop.

“I especially like Chongqing, where the food and culture are completely different from my hometown. Life here is like ‘the other side of the coin’,” he said.

With the help of his local English-speaking friends, he overcame the language barrier and even learned some Chongqing dialects (方言). More importantly, he has got used to the Chinese table culture of “sharing food together”.

Bergamino said, back in Turin, frequent customers to his shop would buy the same desserts and they would be disappointed if they were sold out. The situation in Chongqing, however, is very different. Customers expect different desserts each month, and they would be disappointed if the dessert menu stayed the same, he said.

From 2016 to 2022, Bergamino felt a huge change in the taste of Chinese customers. “In the past, Chinese guests always said that my desserts were too sweet. Now more and more people have accepted the authentic Italian tastes. Mimosa’s consumers are mainly between 25 and 35 a group that is more willing to try overseas tastes partly due to China’s continued opening to the outside world,” he said.

“I hope I can live to 95 and still work,” he said, so that he can, besides bringing authentic Italian desserts to more customers having a sweet tooth, let more people feel the fusion of Chinese and Italian cultures in his desserts.