After all this time in China, I have yet to acquire a taste for mooncakes. It’s not surprising, I guess. I asked a Chinese friend if she liked them and she said, “they’re too heavy and oily. I just take a nibble to celebrate mid-autumn festival and remember what China was like when I was young.” I’ve heard many such responses.

Most years I receive, as a gift, an elegantly packaged box of the heavy and oily treats and I’ve given up trying to eat them. So this year, I was pleased to receive, instead, homemade mooncake cookies. I’d never heard of such a thing. They were dense like the cakes, but not so oily – something like the combination of shortbread and peanut butter. Unlike the mooncakes, these fish-shaped morsels disappeared quickly. 

Good thing I finished this drawing before I set the plate out – now they’re only a memory.