Tonight I had oyakodon. I had it while enjoying the company of a friend whom I love. Oyakodon is Japanese. I experimented with my rice cooker at the indirect behest of a nine-year old Instagram content creator. He told me, with information distilled by rapid cuts, single words, and sharp actions, that if I threw short grain rice, soy sauce, mirin, sliced onion, and cubed chicken thigh into my rice cooker and set it like usual that it would come out perfect. Then he told me to crack and loosely scramble an egg, pour that over the nearly done rice to let it steam, and five to ten minutes later I would have an easy and satisfying oyakodon. I inferred the easy and satisfying part with that specific verbiage on loan from daytime cooking shows that I doubt this kid has heard of. Where the hosts of those shows would tell you how easy and satisfying their recipes were, this kid did it with a heaping spoonful shoved into his face and an enthusiastic nod of approval. Martha Stewart walked so random nine-year old’s with seemingly unfettered access to the internet could run.

Anyway, he was right. It was delicious. The rice was rich and filling, thoroughly saturated with salty-sweet sauce. The onion basically liquified and lent itself as garlic usually does, fragrant and just detectable enough. Chicken was fine. It’s steamed chicken thighs in sauce. It’s basically impossible to really fuck up chicken thighs. I cooked for two this savory tapioca, and ate for two as well. 

“Don” is short for donburi, which means bowl. It is the suffix for the name of the bastardized version of the food which has been hastily delivered from my pressure cooker. The beginning of the name means something as well, and the full translated name is a little morbid. All together, this thing I made is called the “parent and child bowl”. Oyakodon. Because it involves both chicken and egg. Chicken has to come first, because it takes longer to cook. 

I think about chickens and eggs a lot. The relationships of chickens and eggs. Their order. I wonder if it was this kid’s idea to make this video on oyakodon. I wonder if, when he closes the lid of his fancy rice cooker and does his shitty little dance to the sing-song bit-tune of the appliance letting him know it’s getting to work, if that’s his idea. It’s very cute. My pressure cooker doesn’t sing to me. And I can’t dance. It’s probably just a fun family project and not to be overanalyzed. I’m sure the kid is fine. He looks very happy. It’s not my business anyway. 

But man, he does that shitty little dance a lot. In every video. And sometimes he doesn’t smile as widely when he does it. Sometimes he doesn’t look at the camera when he’s dancing, is distracted. Kid shit. And I read into it. Too much, probably.  I have to wonder. I have to wonder if the shitty little dance still belongs to him, if it ever did. This is a popular kid. I have to wonder if ad space is being sold. If unsaid expectations have taken hold. If an audience perceived as consequential has been cultivated. If a conversation has been had or if one even needs to be. If he knows whether or not he can stop dancing. If he can’t, I wonder if at least he’s getting his own cut. Is this egg even an egg anymore? And if not, was it ever? Did it change? What changed it? And where the hell is this egg’s chicken? 

Eggs change. It’s their nature. They are an especially impermanent state of being, and no one expects eggs to remain the same forever, an unhatched egg is a silent tragedy. You gotta hatch. But I need to know if any of the above considerations have taken place. Part of me thinks that if they had, someone would have seen that the egg has become a naive golden goose.

Golden geese are not natural (subscribe for more nature facts) and I think there’s only one natural path forward for golden geese. To be guided back into their eggs by the chicken, and to wait until they become one (a chicken, pay attention) themselves. To observe chickens and eggs through this critical double-slit is to send into jeopardy the very foundation of the henhouse. We might realize that the coop has been co-opted. That chickens and eggs now occupy the same bowl and feed the same beast. Or whatever. It’s probably just a kid having fun making videos with his mom. Don’t look too close.