A pyramid of lumpia rests on the counter of our condo’s kitchen, right next to the stove. Carefully, I maneuver one from the bottom of the pile and take a bite. It’s a burst of all of my favorite flavors: the rich, well-seasoned ground pork, the tender rice noodles, the crispy shredded cabbage and carrots, the even crispier fried flour wrapper holding everything together, and the tangy sweet chili dipping sauce.

“Mom, I think you’ve done enough experimenting. All of these batches have been delicious.”

I dip the other, unbitten end into a small dish of sweet chili sauce.

“You never know what people will want,” she says. “Some like it with pork, some like it with chicken, some like it with shrimp.”

Our post-work evening has been spent testing out different batches of lumpia for the upcoming Maui Food Festival. Ever since I told her we’d be competing to keep our spot on Makena Road, she’s been in a food-prepping frenzy. Every night after work for the past week she’s spent hours testing out new dishes, tweaking ingredients to get the flavors just right. Yesterday it was adjusting the level of fish sauce in the pansit, then attempting to perfect the ratio of rice noodle to meat and vegetables. Today it’s coming up with different fillings for lumpia.

“Don’t forget that batch you made with ground beef and raisins,” I say after another bite. “That one was my favorite.”

She frowns. “I’m not sure everyone will like the raisins.”

“But that’s the recipe you and Auntie Nora came up with. She cooked it for Uncle Nigel on their third date, and that was when he said he knew she was the one for him—because he could eat her cooking forever, remember? Customers will love it too.”

“Maybe. But Uncle Nigel will eat anything,” Mom says with a wave of her hand.

Every time she whips up a batch of this lumpia, it always makes me miss them. If only we had the time—and money—to visit them in London.

I finish eating and begin packing the rest of the lumpia in a Tupperware container. When I start to put the unused lumpia wrappers back in the fridge, she stops me.

“Don’t. I’m going to make more.”

“Mom,” I groan and shove them in anyway.

Suddenly, I’m thirteen years old again and whining because she told me to go clean my room. But now I’m trying to convince her not to exhaust herself in the kitchen to no avail. We already spent two hours at the commercial kitchen this morning prepping food for today’s service, then put in eight hours at the food truck. It’s pushing almost ten at night, and she’s been on her feet all day.