Foreign grocery stores, elderly church ladies and mom's adaptation of Taiwanese beef noodle soup

My mother has always used food in two ways: one, to express love and appreciation, and two, as a means of currency in her community.

When mom, Ling Ling Zheng (affectionately called Momma Wong by my friends), moved from Shanghai to Chicago in the '90s, beef noodle soup was one of the recipes she brought with her, a comforting dish to ward off the bitter winter and a sense of loneliness from leaving her family and homeland. But she remembers being intimidated by American grocery stores, with their seemingly endless rows of cereal and canned food - it was all terribly foreign and strange.

At the time, there were no H Marts or other giant Asian