We cooked one of my favorite foods, bitter melon, or goya, over the weekend. My version of the Okinawan chanpuru included garlic, dried shrimp, onion, eggplant, tofu and egg. Seasoned with fish sauce and served with hot chili paste and brown rice. Before learning that bitter melon is popular in Okinawa, I knew it as a Filipino vegetable, ampalaya, that my parents loved and I didn’t, so it now has multiple cultural associations for me — Okinawa by way of Japan with echoes of the Philippines and mom and dad.