Jayuk Dubap across time

 I have made a lot of Kimchi over the last decade. Often over five pounds at a time, like a person with a healthy Korean diet would. But I have not made it a regular part of my diet and I have to say, I do not know why. The brunch (sorry Tony Bourdain- he hated that word and the idea of it) that I made earlier had such great promise of what was to come.  It was time to decide what was for dinner.

I had an 8-pound pork shoulder downstairs in the fridge. So I went for a went for a pork recipe in Robin's comic book. Jayuk Dubap (Spicy pork over rice).  So this took care of 1 pound of the pork. Talk about needing to get creative this week!

It is like this in the food problem-solving department. It can be so easy, or it can be inexpensive. Rarely is it both, unless I can invest just a little bit more time. For a 46-mile round trip drive, I can buy thinly sliced pork belly, ready to use, that cost 12 times more than my other option. 

Instead, I utilize an 8-pound brick of pork that when frozen could be launched by an ancient catapult and would put a hole through the side of a wooden ship back in the day. Needless to say, there is some finesse needed before we can start cooking.

I don't mind knife work, there is something therapeutic about it. I need accessories though. I need to be in the zone. I touch up the edge of the knife, don my wife-canceling (Donna's term for them) headphones, and pick what album will carry me through to the other side of Mise en place. Squeeze just finished Another Nail in My Heart when the mise was done. 

As I made this pretty spicy meal, I thought about Robin. I thought about the aroma of 3 meals all wafting through her childhood home in Seoul South Korea as she slept in her growing years. I thought about the tastes of her meals as she moved through her days. That direct connection she had with all the work her mom put into her daily sustenance and yet an absolute line of division in which she was not involved in making it, I suddenly thought, I know what this is like.

In 1988, I started painting houses inside and out for a local landlord. As the months passed, the need for me to do more than painting became evident. I had a connection to propane gas because as a kid we moved a lot, we always lived in old houses that had natural gas space heaters and gas-and-gas stoves. It became 2nd nature to understand their inner workings.

When a two-man team that had been laying floors for my employer got done, I stepped up. My father had professionally laid carpet and linoleum back in the mid-70s. Other than seeing him and his partner install my grandfather's wall-to-wall, I was not there to be taught by him. But there is something to this parental connection that I think is the fortitude to stay the course as you learn a task. I started installing floors and I did it in one house after the other. All along, the experience of my father working as a custom support to my own learning. It was as if he was next to me, guiding me.

 I have now seen my own sons do this and it is always something that they were busy doing something else when I could have been teaching them. Robin states, "I never developed an interest in cooking because it seemed like something I would never be able to do. Besides, I had other things on my mind, like reading and drawing comics." What is beautiful is that Robin was close enough to her mom and her food, that years later it made an impression. Moving to a place where food choices were mediocre and a few simple recipes from her mom, she forged ahead with that support system, just as I had in the late 80s. 

Robin invented a cartoon character named Dengki. Dengki would be the cooking teacher, and Robin the illustrator, it was a perfect match. So tonight, thanks to Dengki, my household enjoys this beautiful Jayuk Dubap, Spicy Pork over Rice. Of course, my cold crunchy kimchi on the side, oh man!

The storm is coming - I will understand it

 I have seen it in my father, late at night on a mission to cook things in ways that we or others may never have thought of before. I have seen it in my sons, the call to create something they can see and taste in their minds that they just have to plate into materialization. I am the bridge of this and man, let me tell you it is really something! I cannot ignore it.

I have often described my desire to cook and create like Eric Clapton's "Have You Ever Loved a Woman". Since 1999, food has been my Patti Boyd. She was the former wife of George Harrison and Eric Clapton, the woman who served as the powerful inspiration for songs like Clapton's "Layla", and "Something" by the Beatles and many more by Eric and George respectively.

I don't pretend to know much about Patti's life, other than her presence seemed to have a runaway train effect on the people mesmerized with her. Whether this was due to qualities within those persons or not, I do not know. Nonetheless, a powerful effect took place.

For me, it is like one lone raindrop falls from the sky, and I can hear it from a thousand miles away. I get up and look up at the sky. I can feel it in the air, I smell it coming in like a distant storm. Something awaits and even now, I am not sure what it will be. I know more at this point what it will not be and that is a powerful thing. Before I know it, it is pouring.

It's not just what happens now. I know that we can learn to cook almost involuntarily. We can move in harmony with cooking synching our lives with the food and having it mean something. Instead of letting it be a chore and a utility function, it can flow with ease and without effort. It can just be.

So inside my head, I am screaming, but I am not making a sound. I know I have something here, but I am still trying to create words that can describe it. 

It is February.  For the last two Februarys, I have done something called taco week. They were a lot of fun, but I am not feeling it this year. Besides, I can do taco week any month of the year that I choose, right? I do have this desire to pull off some sort of thematic event that will edify how food and life can flow together, reducing stress, not creating it.

This is where we lock the door of the barroom, turn and face the advertisers, the propagandists, and the naysayers and tell them they are about to get their butts handed to them. The slaying of people's self-esteem and confidence ends today. Unpack your knives, now.

Eighteen hours passed since I felt the drop of rain and I thought, Korean food is a flow. I needed a friend to spell it out to me though. I found Robin Ha in my bookshelf with her Cook Korean A Comic Book with Recipes cookbook on the shelf.  I have had this wonderful book for years.

Robin told how her Mom was so busy that she would produce breakfast, lunch, and dinner before Robin even got up for school as a child. As a result, she never learned to cook until she was staying with a family in Italy and the mom there showed her that anyone can cook. Robin developed a taste for international cuisine while attending college in Manhattan and then missed it after moving away. She set her focus on cooking Korean food much to the delight of her friends. When they asked her how to make this food, she could not simply do that. Koreans do not measure things and Robin was a cartoonist. So after deciphering measurements in her recipes, she created a wonderful comic book that allowed her to share her food.

It had been some time since I took this book off the shelf.  When going over the four pages of Korean pantry items I was pleased to realize, I have 95% of everything here in my pantry.  She also pointed out that Koreans eat rice and kimchi at all 3 meals and they eat whatever kind of meal they want at any time of day. There it was.

I was up and rinsing rice to put into the rice cooker (thank you Linda M.) Rice has been second nature. It never matters how much you choose to make, it cannot get messed up as long as you do the finger trick, which is placing your index finger on top of the rice, then filling the water until it reaches the first joint on your finger. Perfect every time.

I made kimchi on January 2nd and it is in this perfect place right now. Okay, so there are the two staples of a day in Korea.  Naturally, protein was next. I wanted some fast but creative.  I have studied people teaching how to remove salt and nitrates from Spam. Spam is a staple in Korea, I keep some on hand. 

During the Korean War (1950-1953) Korean families were struggling to feed their families. American soldiers, touting boxes of C-Rations (canned food served as military meals) contained what we know as Spam today. Resourceful Korean mothers and grandmothers gratefully accepted all the GIs were willing to give them. Out of this, traditional Korean recipes were created, most famously, Army Base Stew.

I slowly simmered the spam in a skillet full of water adding mirin and soy sauce towards the end. Then just before the rice was done, I pan-seared the spam and seasoned it with dark soy, rice wine vinegar. If I had not known this was spam, I would not have been able to tell. It was so wonderful. 

During this time, I did up a cold spicy celery bowl. Four very nice components of a simple and delicious brunch were born. This is not hard, but it can make your day. Shouldn't this be what food is about?

It was then I knew, the thematic mission was accepted. All meals were going to be Korean this week. As I looked forward, why couldn't next week's be from Vietnam and the week after Japan? In doing so, I wish to adapt their intelligent and holistic view of food to my existence.

My desire is to take the "what are we going to make for dinner" attitude and punch it in the face, not with aggression, but with diverse creativity.

Stay tuned. Dinner is coming.