一點光，足夠讓旁邊看清楚
你有沒有試過，很努力地撐起一件事，結果聚光燈都在別人身上？
泰國有幾道菜，用盡最難處理的材料：河魚、魚內臟等。而著名的叢林咖喱更走得極端，不用椰奶，也沒有別的東西把辛辣與腥味蓋過去。但這幾道菜，都會放凹唇薑，它的用量極少，但放一點下去，整鍋的味道就會平衡起來。奇怪的是，你卻嚐不出它本身的鋒芒。這整株植物的香氣，全部安靜地收在地下那一束手指狀的根裡，葉子幾乎沒有氣味。
它的氣味像一陣曬過太陽的清風吹過，乾淨而爽朗。底下有一層柔軟的支持感，像潮濕多雨的午後，窗外忽然轉晴。
凹唇薑從來不是菜的主角，但整碟菜沒有它卻不成立。它做的事不是讓自己被嚐到，而是把那些難處理的部分修飾起來，讓剩下的東西可以好好呈現。有些人的位置，就是讓旁邊的人更像他自己。那不是被忽略，而是一種很難的本事。
被嚐到的多少，和你佔了多重，從來是兩件事。那陣風不會留下自己的味道，但它過去之後，所有東西都清楚了一點。
以香為語，安在當下。
A little light is enough to see by.
Have you ever put everything into holding something up, and found the spotlight resting on somebody else?
There are dishes in Thailand that use the most difficult ingredients there are: river fish, fish entrails and the like. The well-known jungle curry goes to an extreme, with no coconut milk and nothing else to cover over the heat and the muddiness. Yet every one of these dishes takes fingerroot. Very little of it is used, but a little goes in and the whole pot comes into balance. The odd thing is that you cannot taste its own edge at all. The scent of this entire plant is held quietly in that bundle of finger-like roots underground; the leaves have almost no smell to them.
It smells of a clean wind that has had the sun on it, blowing through, dry and bright. Underneath lies a soft, steadying warmth, like a wet grey afternoon when the window suddenly clears.
Fingerroot was never the main thing in the dish, and yet the dish does not hold together without it. Its work is not to be tasted; it is to dress the difficult parts so that everything else can show itself properly. Some people's place in the room is to make the people beside them more themselves. That is not being overlooked. It is a hard thing to be able to do.
How much of you is tasted and how much of you counts were always two different things. The wind leaves no scent of its own. But once it has passed, everything is a little clearer.
𝘽𝙚 𝙋𝙧𝙚𝙨𝙚𝙣𝙩, 𝙩𝙝𝙧𝙤𝙪𝙜𝙝 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙡𝙖𝙣𝙜𝙪𝙖𝙜𝙚 𝙤𝙛 𝙨𝙘𝙚𝙣𝙩.