When it comes to food, there are only a few types that he will eat happily: plain rice, plain pasta, plain paratha, plain pizza, chicken nuggets, Cap’n Crunch, and cookies.

Jala’s father calls her on the phone, suggesting that she could repair her relationship with her mother by asking for cooking lessons to make traditional dishes like paratha, Indian flatbread.

Eventually, as she always does, she suggests aloo paratha and this makes everything worse.

It's hard to publicly admit that I get triggered by flatbread, but of all the foods my mom makes, aloo paratha is never one I really want, though it's hard for bread stuffed with potatoes to be bad.

Maybe I never choose aloo paratha because It tastes complicated, like guilt and gratitude and too much time spent away, not seeing my parents enough, and how good to me they are anyway.