Kathy

Appears in
Mango and Peppercorns: A Memoir of Food, an Unlikely Family, and the American Dream
Mango and Peppercorns

By Tung Nguyen, Katherine Manning, Lyn Nguyen and Elisa Ung

Published 2021

  • About
I spent most of my night in jail avoiding the toilet. The stench of urine filled the air in the tiny, windowless cell. As the hours passed, I began to dread having to pee in front of the two other women sitting on the wooden bench with me. Who knew you could land in jail for not getting your car inspected on time?

If it was going to happen to anyone, it was going to happen to me. It certainly wasn’t my first time in jail for something stupid. Kathy, you’ve done it again, I told myself. I had a history of making bad decisions that landed me in trouble. Sometimes, opening a restaurant with Tung seemed like one of them.