The West Pacific Sunrise

 I was hanging in my weakness, 

the waves of fruitless thought.

I took the steps I had so carefully crafted, 

smashing them with shame that only I could perceive.

I saw fantastic strangers who wanted everything I wanted.

They were clinging to rafts of their creativity.

I saw them as mentors, and they saw me as theirs.

Like me, they fought for dreams, moving one thread at a time.

Photo by Aidan Kahng on Unsplash

I do not understand how I have blocked out the sound of reassurance.

I have walked the shore of self-doubt for no reason.

I saw them flying kites in the breeze, and I was astonished at their skill

They complimented my craft, and my past slapped me for listening.

When the sun lit the water then slowly touched the sky

I heard a noise that it was making, and it was fine.

I held my thoughts of self-depreciation at bay so that the work of my hands 

could prevail with the sound the sunrise makes.

I am listening now, my inner voice subdued and held down, and I am never allowed to speak.

I have heard enough of that and will now listen to your words.

The sun is rising and it is time to acknowledge that.

Waiting for You

 I met a girl, and she opened my eyes.

I wanted things I never wanted before.

She shared stories that I never knew existed

Tales I never could have imagined.

When I awoke she was nowhere

Out on the front porch, I noticed a glow on the horizon

I knew what I had to do

I rode off into the frontier.

As the years went by I grew in knowledge and wisdom

I could tell by the feel of the wind when it was time to go

One great adventure after another, she always led me

It was a cool evening and  I saw her walk by

my creativity surged with no limits

but then I turned to look and again, she was gone.

As the years go by I find that I need to push forward on her memory and what she showed me

Every time I see her, I watch and miss her knowing she will disappear

Our encounter becomes more of a deep well giving water endlessly only if I strive to remember.

Today I have to search inside and look for ways to bring her into my day.

Some are crafty deceptions, some are close encounters with her

Together, these make me possible, pushing forward. Ever pushing forward.

Rewards at the Kitchen Counter

For some reason, I am the type of person who needs a return on investment for all aspects of my life. This includes going on vacation. Vacations are not something that I do often or easily. I know that I am wrong in this, so I do try to break the cycle. 

If I go out to eat at a restaurant, it is a disappointment if I am not inspired to add a recipe to my portfolio. It doesn’t have to be the exact meal that I had at the restaurant, but I do like it when it sparks something and made to create something that I would not have otherwise. 

Seeing what someone can create in a dish can be an artistic expression about is in there her and soul. It is very much like reading a poem or a paragraph in a novel that brings tears to your eyes, food is the same way. It fascinates me that food being something that we all have in common, that we must eat every day, that there is not nearly enough awareness of its power to heal, celebrate, nourish, and elevate.

Please don’t get me wrong here. I also know that there are so many people in the world that scrape crumbs together just to find sustenance and even then it’s not enough. This is certainly a tragedy that should never happen and yet is the most prevalent. I will not pretend in this composition to have any cure for that.

I just got done reading Kitchen Counter Cooking School by Kat Flynn. She had recently finished culinary school at Le Cordon Bleu in France. She was in a grocery store and she observed women walking around with nothing but processed food and frozen dinners and their shopping carts. She started asking questions and out of that she found nine volunteers to attend a several month cooking class that she gave weekly. The goal was to demonstrate why process foods are unneeded, unhealthy, expensive, and do not save time. The nine volunteers that she found were very different from each other, so I would say that she covered a grand spectrum of people representing all walks of life. 

When I found this book last winter in a secondhand bookstore, I knew it was going to be a treasure because it spoke to me on a level that I have been trying to express myself on for so long. I always suspected cooking was not difficult and that what it produced Could beautifully represent the person creating it whoever they were.

The result of this experiment was not a rubber stamping of techniques or procedures, or even recipes, the end result was the liberation of the person inside to be able to create healthy and delicious food for themselves for their families and to inspire others, to quote Captain Spock, “Each according to their gifts.”

You can get to know a person through the food that they are making. The more adverse the situations under which the meal has to be prepared, (except you, cutthroat kitchen, I’m not buying it) The more the makers creativity will shine.

There is one thing that I have learned from this book it is that I need to go home and deprive myself of being able to go out and buy specific ingredients and see what happens. I have lived  like that in every aspect when it comes to provisions and it is time I applied it to the culinary side.

Sometimes I do not know how to translate what I feel inside about cooking and how it comes out, but I am trying constantly. There is adventure, there is joy, there is discovery to be had. One thing that is for sure, I will keep on trying. I will not give up. 

Bibimbap: You don't know what you got

 When I thought yesterday was tough, I had no idea that it was only the beginning. As I rode into Thursday, I had no idea what was next. No inspiration, no direction, and no clue. I brought 2 books on Korean cooking to work with me, but I was too busy to read them. There they sat on my desk, the works of Eric Kim, Taekyung Chung, and Debra Samuels taunting me. It was a reminder, that I had planned nothing in this Korean theme week.  I have been winging it. It was looking like I was out of ideas.

I chose denial as the precious hours of the day passed. We are in a state of physical transition at work which provides the perfect opportunity to hide my head in the sand on dinner ideas. I was sure of one thing, I had missed a few important household items when grocery shopping early yesterday morning, so I was stopping at Walmart before heading back over the river to go home tonight. I work well under pressure, so staring down the barrel of the imminent family requiring dinner, I just might pull something out of nothing.

As I sat in the parking lot of Walmart, my weakness surrounded me and I began to reason, "No one is going to think poorly of me if I take a break tonight, there was no time, it happens to all of us.  I will just continue Korea week tomorrow." As I walked into the store, even though I tried not to think about it, I was feeling disappointed in myself. I decided that my mind would stay open, and I would stop thinking about the big picture and stay generic. Whether you use a Korean tabletop cooker, a wok, a skillet, or the grill on the porch, thinly sliced beef is the most versatile option when planning the not-yet-conceived Korean dinner. 

Donna was still not yet home when I got there, the house was dark and cold. This is because we heat with wood and no one had been home since 9 this morning to feed the wood stove. It had been a very cold and blustery day, so getting the heat going was first. The Second was, to call my sister Amy. I donned my Aeropex headphones and dialed her number, it had been too long since we talked.

Somehow I knew that my actions would just fall into a grove.  I honestly believe that we as humans instinctively know what to do initially, but then we let our heads intervene, messing everything up. Rock on Mel Robbins!

Prepping banchan (Korean supporting dishes), sauteed carrots, spinach, bean sprouts, mushrooms, and zucchini, then the thinly sliced beef, fried sunny side up eggs, and an incredible gochujang blended sauce to top with sesame seeds can just happen as a 2-hour conversation happens with your little sister. Bibimbap is born. This is where my go-with-the-flow theory leads. It was so nice to catch up with Amy.

Last Saturday, we had a giant bowl of Bibimbap at Shin-la in Brattleboro. This, "I am out of ideas Thursday night, this I am out of time, this I am exhausted and just want fast food night's" Bibimbap was just as good if not better than Shin-la's. If this does not drive home the point to stop overthinking dinner, I do not know what does! Not only did I make Korean dinner 5 nights in a row, make giant messes in my kitchen, and clean up said messes myself, I did what I set out to do, I took the old adversary, "I don't know what to make for dinner tonight" and I punched it in the face!

Don't give up! Korean Salmon Bowl

There is always that time when we just don't know what it is we are going to make for dinner. Add this to a theme week and that is culinary paralysis. It is Wednesday. Liam and Haylie are coming for dinner. In my mind I saw us all sitting around the table, with a Korean barbeque cooker in the center of the table, super hot, around it were different vegetables and meats for us to place on the hot cast surface, searing up savory little bites to place into lettuce wraps with fermented bean paste, kimchi, samjan, chili crisp and beautiful banchan.

The reality was I had no time to prep.  I did an early morning, before-work grocery shopping which then rolled right into a full workday, then right into dinner time. So there were no meats thawed and finely sliced. The banchan prep has not even started. I had bought 2 pounds of salmon at the fish counter earlier. That is usually our go-to easy meal, salt, pepper, olive oil, and out onto the hot grill on the porch, then topped with a lemon garlic aioli. Easy peasy. Not so fast! This is Korea week and I am not getting away with dinner that easily.

Salmon is not a fish traditionally found in Korea. In fact, Korea only recently became obsessed with salmon after perfecting large farming operations. Salmon not being traditional Korean food is not going to stop me. After all, in a world where you can take vanilla ice cream, top that with peanut butter, and then top that with wasabi and have it knock your socks off, this is not a stretch.

Nice bulgogi flavors infused into chunky cubes of salmon marinated in soy, mirin garlic, and ginger, with a gochujang glaze,  air fried then served on white rice, baby cucumbers, beansprouts with a spicy and savory dressing, and kimchi.  It was true to the Korean theme for this week. The best part is that the cubed salmon cooks for 5 to 6 minutes in the air fryer.

I always get this weird sort of idea that I might fall back one night and just surrender.  I might tell myself that circumstances just were not there to do a Korean-influenced meal tonight. I am happy to report that day was not today. I have to say, that makes me feel good.  It is nice to stay the course. When I consider giving up, I cannot help but think of the late Julie Powel (Julie and Julia). She stuck with Mastering the Art of French Cooking for 365 days! There is no way that I am going to wimp out. No!

Mandu: Let's make some dumplings!

 In the last 12 years, I could not count how many thousands of dumplings I have made. These are mostly my take on the typical Chinese dumpling. The ones I usually make are famous for, homemade wrappers, home-ground pork butt, an incredible amount of bok choy, Napa cabbage, spinach, and scallion. Seasoned in fresh ginger, oyster sauce, sesame oil, and soy sauce. I also make a homemade dipping sauce that is so many things at once.

I am so down with that method that I have felt like the new kid in those times that I decided to try dumplings a different way. In the process, I learned that even a leftover meal, such as the japchae can be spooned into wrappers, sealed, fried to a crispy bottom, and then steamed to finish. You won't believe how awesome this can be.  The wrapper is that blanket of love that can take something you make into a whole new place.

Mandu is a Korean dumpling. These are more freestyle.  They can consist of many or even anything vegetable or meat-wise. This means one thing to me, refrigerator cleanout time. During lunchtime, I got out the grinder attachment for the KitchenAid and ground up the pork. At dinner time, everything I could find got pulled out: Napa cabbage, onion, scallion, enoki mushrooms, carrot, tofu, spinach, zucchini, and seasonings. 

I did not have time to do homemade wrappers, so I tried three different things. First egg roll wrappers, but those were damaged, wonton wrappers, but those were too tedious for this sport utility style filling, and finally a package of dumpling wrappers that I found at my local Asian market a couple months ago. Then I tried 3 different methods of cooking them.

For me, I would have to say that making Mandu is a wonderful reminder that the sky is the limit. I used 3 different wrappers and 3 different cooking methods, (I had to chisel batch # 2 off of the wok) and I utilized whatever I had in the fridge for the filling. As I enjoyed my bowl of these steamed dumplings with their crispy caramelized bottoms, I remembered the badge of honor and creativity of the Korean people who carried their families through war and famine. Not only did they feed their families, but they did it with a brand of eloquence that is impossible not to be moved by.

The practicality of it all is the best. It shouts out, "I will not surrender to ordering overpriced mediocre takeout tonight! I will not suffer the buyer's remorse that now comes with ordering out food these days." In the wake of these dark days where the ad mongers' propaganda rides high in the collective psyche, we all still have a choice. Let's stop going to assembly line "elevated fast food" telling ourselves that it was good, and get into our own kitchens and make some dumplings!

Japchae happens

 Sometimes a course change can happen on a dime. A reality other than the one we planned on seemingly hangs from a fine thread. The storm that brought it upon us leads us to determine that the thread is made of the strongest of materials. It becomes what we are made of.

Today's star is the amazing Emily Kim, born Kim Kwang-sook, but known affectionately around the world as Maangchi. Described by the New York Times as YouTube's Korean Julia Child, she owns stock in a sizable piece of my Korean culinary education.

Close to a decade after this teacher/family counselor migrated to North America, she took up gaming for a post-divorce pastime. Her avatar, a small girl who fought crime with a large hammer was named Maangchi, which is Korean for hammer. In 2007 she started making videos teaching how to make authentic Korean food and for the lack of a channel name, Maangchi was born.

Maangchi is what I would like to call unsinkable and in that way, the name Hammer seems just right. She sports a quirky sense of humor and when it comes to Korean food, she has universal respect. I am sure if you were to ask her today if she ever thought that this is where she would end up she would tell you, no way.

I have had many junctions like this in my life.  In fact, many people were born due to what I did in a one-hour block on a Saturday night 33 years ago. Such a singular thing brings about incredible change and possibilities. 

Monday night's Japchae, sweet potato starch noodles with vegetables and meat is like that. The noodles have a unique clear look to them that when cooked by themselves in a sauté pan, can look a bit questionable, but they are a wild card. The possibilities they bring to a dish are endless. 

There is a dish called Japchae Hotteok which is everything in this recipe except the meat, but it is then fully wrapped in a ball of homemade dough and deep fried into a savory donut and dipped in blissful sweet, spicy, and/or savory sauces. Yeah, possibilities man, that is what I am talking about.

Sweet potato starch noodles change everything for the better, who knows what they will end up in next?

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. 

The odyssey of chaos

 In the last couple of years, I have learned that I thrive on disaster. The more chaotic a situation, the more in my element I am. This is where my love of contingency was born. I realize that just saying these words may seem wrong or off-center. It is nothing so weird. I was raised at a time when it took serious creativity to get by abundant limitations. I am so thankful because even though I say that there were limitations, there were also people who provided solutions to keep me and my family safe.

Many of the survival skills in life that I learned, I learned from people around me and developed the mindset that consistently worked out better ways to solve everyday problems. In doing so, solving problems monetarily was erased from the manual. I subconsciously removed that as an option and as you might guess, there are an infinite number of possibilities.

So, yes.  Most of the chaos was an implied threat to daily life. Eviction, the loss of a couple of refrigerators, two years without a car, loss of income, minimum wage, things that many families endured. Although my Mom did a very good job making sure my sisters and I still could be children, I could feel the intensity of the struggle and developed my contingent mindset.

It is pretty amazing how being raised this way can mold all the decisions you make on a daily basis for decades to come. There is a cavalier sort of attitude that as the world becomes more materialistic and disposable, I was out to smite it, throughout the course of my life.

 There are so many interesting side effects that come with this ability. I’ve created the demand within myself to expect creativity in almost every decision no matter how great or small. I am fascinated at how it is actually developed into my running into a task and expect that I will fully deploy the assembly, execution, and delivery, every single time. I have even detected this type of creativity in my sons. Obviously, that comes from learning it from me as opposed to it being born out of necessity. But this is something I certainly want to be careful

In two days, I am starting our second camping trip of the season. This one will be without a camper and upon a very rural mountain. The regular method that I have of doing meals, which is bringing a pile of food and then creating something is a headache. I am pleased right now that I can perceive this as a mess. It means I am understanding my approach to things more than I ever have before. So instead of going on my typical creative and complex path, I have decided that I’m going to put some serious forethought and preparation into all meals. Because this is such a primitive camping experience, I’m going to do my best to build a bunch of parchment and foil packets with delicious food in them. Metaphorically this is huge!

I think somewhere along the way my demand for creativity in finding solutions somehow translated into choosing complex methods. I have always joked that for me it was, “no way but the hard way“. Really, the foil packets are not the only thing that I’ve been doing this with. So many small decisions when compared to the weeks, months, and years of your life, add up to significant differences. So yes, the great experiment continues. You might say that this is not far of a departure from other ideas that I regularly deploy, and you’re right. But if the last couple of years have taught me anything, a worthy question to ask before taking on an effort is: “What is the return on investment of this effort?“ Basically, is this worth spending time on?

So, I look forward to this weekend. Looking forward to not having to create things on the spot. I look forward to freeing my mind space to enjoy the moment opening the cooler and placing that foil packet in the coals and not having to perform, which is what the alternate feels like sometimes. Here is freedom.

The pressure is on

 What happens after one writes an entry in a blog for 7 days in a row? The inclination is to pull over to the side of the road. To reflect. To analyze what just happened. But then I remember my thought process from 7 days ago. I was asking, why can’t I be more consistent in writing? It was then I knew pulling over was not the answer.  This thing has a second gear and it is time to use it. 

There is a bigger picture here too. Too many times when it comes to cooking I have done this symbolic pulling over to the side of the road. I will devalue my abilities before I move into the next gear because I get stuck in my own head and allow all of the obsolete traditional voices to beat me down into uncertainty.

I have learned some very interesting facts recently. Before COVID-19 began, 16% of all Chinese restaurants closed permanently. This was due mostly to the generation of people running these retiring with no one able to carry on the legacy. COVID-19 did far more damage. By mid-2020, according to CNN, America saw 59 percent of its Chinese restaurants shut down.  While some of these reopened, consider all those who were somewhat close to retiring, struggling with inflation, and the extreme loss in business volume in an industry in which profit margins are narrow.

This fact was recently discussed in a podcast examining what it takes to make Chinese food as available as it used to be. The answer is not good. This is the part I forget. Chinese, well, Asian food altogether, is not easy to make.  Yes, you can follow a recipe and make Asian food. But, it is really a state of mind. An Italian, French, Mexican, or American chef cannot just whip up Asian dishes, and be in the zone that defines it. You have to live it. 

If you put me on the TV show Chopped, no matter what is in the basket, I am going to honor Asian cuisine in some way. It is who I am. Sure, I love tacos too, but please I used to live on the South Texas Gulf Coast. It comes with the territory. My Asian experience came with over two decades of hard work, wins, and yes, failures. “Gotta pay your dues if you wanna sing the blues, and you know it doesn’t come easy” right?

All of that hard work has refined me. I am hard-pressed to find a dish out at the restaurants that I can’t make better. In fairness, I am not running a business. The economics of feeding the masses are not an issue for me at home so those ingredients that I can add more of to make my dishes robust are not practical when you are running a business. But it does tell me that culinarily, I can hang with these folks. With the massive losses to Asian food service, we need to carry on.

This means that I not only owe it to me to shift into the next gear, but I owe it to the industry. Things are different today.  The chefs without restaurants movement is getting bigger every day. I am good with this. Personally, I have been moving things around to prepare. There are great things coming and it has to be done my way. For writing, for cooking: stand by second gear.

It’s all about trajectory

 I’ve often thought of my daily existence and collective existence as random particles traveling through the void. That is certainly true. After pondering this for about seven years now, I have come to the conclusion that random particles they may be, the good news is that they are all traveling in the same direction.

Let me lose the abstract here. At the age of 57, there is an awful lot of clarity. My 28-year-old self is extremely envious of that focus. But let’s face it, there are way too many non-existent bridges leading back to 1993. So deal with it.

What I mean by this is, I know the things that I want to do and I also recognize that time is a more budgetary thing than I have ever realized. Despite this, I have my moments where I lose the fight against my 18 years of RA pain, fatigue, repercussions of hard living, and don’t make the best of every moment. But that doesn’t stop me. Like someone tied down at those times, I struggle and tear against those bindings in order to make a difference, to move forward, to make every day not look like the day before.

So where am I now? Something that has taunted me for years is that house-smashing trees in my front yard were taken down 2 1/2 weeks ago. Although I will be processing that wood with a chainsaw and a wood splitter and dealing with that for the better part of this year in some way, it is definitely a relief.

I love to cook, this is well known. After all the dust settles on personal and work projects in the first half of this year, I have really wanted to take the first steps into making my side hustle the reality in which I provide meal kits for sale, a farmers market appearance, or two, and maybe even some small catering jobs. In doing so, I see that as a family endeavor. To work with my family would be the most rewarding thing.

Sometimes it feels like I’m sort of moving further away from that. As the storm of projects pelts me like asteroids striking the hull of a spacefaring vessel, it seems that I lost the ambition to cook, which is sort of important for what I have in mind. In May of 2020, I secured my ServSafe certification, which just ran out about two weeks ago. Sorry for being whiny about this, as I know that I just need to invest some time and take the certification again. But, really? Three years gone and you (I) haven’t done anything yet?

I noticed that I navigate these days as one would in a large unfamiliar, booby-trapped library. I don’t want to make mistakes like I did last year, in which I allowed piles of dirt to steal an entire year of my life from me. This year, I want all of it to mean something. There is so much to do, and I am looking for ways to make sure that I can do those things in the most intelligent manner.

My boys have automobiles that they need help with. My own vehicle has significant maintenance needs if it is to continue. For some reason, my existence always seems to be connected to the organizational level of my garage. I know this really sounds pretty stupid, but let me tell you what, when it is chaos in there which has been most of the 22 years I have lived here, my life cannot have a true course. That needs to happen.

I also know how important it is to be in the moment. On Sunday I was outside in the woods cutting up large limbs of the ash tree. It was in the low 50s, light rain and I was trying to make the day count for getting some of the wood processed. The whole episode at times can feel like singing 999,999 bottles of beer on the wall. I know that’s silly, but I am moving forward. Then, in one moment, I was done. I was sick of standing in the rain cutting trees, sweating in my gear, just done with this task for today. The one thing I wanted to do was get cleaned up, take a ride with my wife, and do something together.

With all the things that I know that I need to do, sometimes it feels like I am writing new lyrics to “We Didn’t Start the Fire “, but hey, I’m not special. Isn’t that everyone? For now, I think I am going to write a project map/calendar. It should allow me to take on tasks easily without wandering back and forth like a caged animal not knowing where to start. It should also allow me to see progress, should I make any. (Sorry for the cynicism, my humor can be dark.)

Moving forward that is what it is all about. I am going to do it, and I’m going to write about it. It is not for you. This is for me. Just putting things out there somehow clears the debris, and maybe, somehow the garage of mine can find order, thus causing all of the tumblers in my life to fall into place.

and this happened yesterday!

 Yes, there are many hurdles ahead, but this is my declaration that I AM DOING THIS.  Appropriately so, I was at the Miracle Mile Listen Center (regional thrift store) and scored one of the most important books in the world to a professional chef, and what was to be my next printed acquisition on Amazon, The Flavor Bible, for one dollar!  This means I have the CIA official textbook, The New Professional Chef, Salt Fat Acid Heat, and now this one.  These are in the top 6 all-time required chef references.  

In other news, I was had, sort of.  Let's just say, "I see cooking stuff"

Just Another Brick in the Flavor Wall

 Dropping Noah off at school on a beautiful June morning, I've returned to face the ten dump truckloads of dirt that I volunteered to take. I need them, but I need them to take the forms that I need them to. That is okay. It is my famous "Give a Mouse a Cookie From Hell" scenario. This needs to happen, but you can't spread dirt till you stack firewood in the shed, you can't do that until the rest of the splitting happens, you can't do that unless... And So It Goes. I suspect that deviously, my garage is probably involved, I just know it is! 

Work time begins soon. I could sit and watch the news, but I don't want all that negativity in my life on such a beautiful morning. Lately, for me, it is been about understanding that I can finish things.  I have learned that having too many unfinished projects damages me into thinking that I am succeeding at nothing. It is a house of cards. 

So what about the kitchen? I am years beyond just going to stores and buying ingredients that become fantastic meals later on. In fact, with many composite ingredients, I have learned to create many myself. Chili crisp and chili oil for instance. Yes, I can buy this off the shelf and just crack open a new jar. It's convenient, delicious, fast, and comes with a price. What about Mirin? Same deal. I do not use Mirin too much, but when I buy it, it seems like I am always on the last ounce of it in the bottle. Money again. So what do you do when you have 15 minutes to burn in which you can do something to remind yourself that you are capable of completing SOMETHING?  Just a little sense of accomplishment that uses that time block wisely investing time and resources. 

The brown sugar is low. Downstairs to retrieve a 4 lb bag of sugar I go. By the way, when did they change these bags from 5 lbs down to 4 anyway? Deception lives everywhere, especially in Commerce. Food processor, molasses, and half of the 4 lb bag whirl their way into brown sugar. Then it is time to go to work for the day.

 

You may wonder why I put myself through all of this. To start with, a penny saved is truly a penny earned, right? My $20 tire changer and $59 balancer have saved me about $1,000, with more savings to come. This is real money.

Brown sugar though? I buy staples and turn them into things that modern society is brainwashed into thinking that they have to buy at a store, inadvertently I'm elevating the experience. You eat at my house and there are all these differences in small places such as chili oil and mirin, brown sugar, fried shallots, pickled onions, homemade teriyaki sauce, homemade rubs, vinegar, and sauces that are otherwise packaged and bottled, you crossed the line from black and white to Technicolor to your senses. The end result cannot be duplicated just by telling someone to marinade or brine before composing!  It's more granular.  In this way, the flavors make a grand entrance. This is a far cry from going to Dunkin Donuts and getting a breakfast sandwich that tastes more like cardboard and it does actual food that its appearance suggests. 

When you give it a chance and make use of things you have, you just might find that you have crossed over into the flavor zone that you did not know existed.  The food blasts colorful flavors at you like that autumn day that you know as you take photographs of it, that the end result will never truly capture what you are seeing right now.

I highly recommend this.  No one has the time to make everything, but pick something you love, research it, and give it a try.  I just know you will find joy in doing so.

A Chef’s Block

Rice is life. About that stuff that went down last month. I was walking on a long journey to places I did not know or understand. I knew I was not eating. I knew I was not sleeping. Somehow I felt that the momentum of my entire life could push me through the valleys of cold depth that I was traveling. It never occurred to me that this defies logic and physics. I did not care. I supported this corner of the world with the things I had acquired. And I foolishly thought that they could endure. All along the way, I never lost my inspiration and that was the one thing I was very pleased to find. After all, I have spent so much time being equally unimpressed with everything under the sun.

 I raced toward the western horizon with my foot on the floor. 2 AM had just passed, and then it happened without warning. The engine stops. I feel my emptiness wrap around me as it catches up to my lost momentum, like dropping from the speed of sound that suddenly overtakes me. I did not know that this was even possible. Where is my inspiration now? Where is my drive? I just sit on the side of a lonely desert road, hours before dawn allows me to see what sort of mess this is. I am really lost. I don’t know what to do with this.

 I turn the key but there is no life. Even worse, I don’t even want to turn the key! As the first hour passes my darkened mind considers throwing the keys into the desert and just walking down the road. Betrayal kills me at the thought of this. Adding this to the list of things I have treated so recklessly. I keep asking myself, what now? But the answer is not there. Who am I now? I quietly sit in the dirt. I evaluate all that I have. I have decided the sunrise could come years from now or even perhaps never again. I am aware that only I can do that. The question is, do I want to? Like other things in my past, getting up can only happen if I embrace falling down. So I sit.

 I feel the coolness of the ground. I am connected to the earth. Almost accepting the loss I have suffered is actually helping even though I have no idea how. In the quiet, I know the sun is going to shine again. There is a blind faith inside of me that says a passion to be is still here. In my silence, I can see the light of something from a distance, like an old friend coming into view. Rage is coming to breakfast. Where have you been? I know now, that I can get up off the ground, turn the key, and with passion and fire inside of me, I can do it! I can cook again! I can really cook! That unending source of ambition and fire and creativity lives breathes, and jumps again! How I have missed that. As my speed and momentum build, the sun breaks the horizon and I say the words with an honest heart. I promise to never take this for granted again.

Julie and Julia and what it really means

Fragmentation of my existence continues. I feel that some of us are more fortunate than others. We are staggering around through life and we get our foot stuck in a crack in the trail. This happens because we are either nice people or we are inducted into some sort of servitude temporarily. Others made an unpredictable course change equivalent to suddenly jerking the steering wheel rail-ward on a long bridge. No matter what they did, when everything settles, somehow the pieces of who they are, are found to be more assembled than ever before.

It was certainly this way for Julie Powel, the author of Julie and Julia. BTW. I have never seen a movie that was so NOT the book ever before like this, meaning, if you saw the movie, you have no clue. Read the book. Julie clearly hated her life. She worked in the wake of one of the biggest tragedies there ever was. Even worse she worked for the bureaucratic remediation of said tragedy. Her personal life was empty or at least she perceived it was. She envied her friends that had lives that it seemed she actually would not have wanted if you said, "ok Julie, you win, you can have this life." Where is she now? Her life actually does not suck. Just as importantly, she brought great honor in defining another great woman who, herself was also feeling this incredible fragmentation of the sum of her being. It is a shame the movie got dumbed down to the level a 7 year old could understand. On a whole, you can only feed Americans entertainment from a Pez dispenser.

Sorry, I am doing that thing I do. Julia Child was one of those fragmented people who had some really great qualities that needed the glue of purpose, and well, we know she sure found it.

Getting to the point now. Last fall in September, we camped at this exact site at Winhall Brook Campground. I proclaimed then that I would wrangle those fragments of mine in a coherent and collected and hopefully talented person. The question is, knowing that I did not succeed, what DO I have to show for a winter of cold, cooking, loss and introspect?

More on this later. The coffee is done perking!

What's normal Anyway?

One of my friends at work today said, I don't think you guys eat anything normal. At first that is an easy statement to accept , but as I think about it it makes me realize why I am cooking in the first place. I actually want the food that I am cooking to become my normal. If I can see the progression of Trying a recipe and progressing to getting good at it and developing my own style then I can own it. Then i have acheived normal.

Bibimbap is like that for me. In a subliminal quest to eat better I need the flavors to be like snapping life out of the jaws of death! people like George Stella and Juan Carlos on the Food Network told us many years ago that if we wanted to change our diet we could actually enjoy food even after you've made drastic changes to improve your health. I think we do eat normally. Eating a box of Kraft Mac and cheese (which I did try a forkful one time) would be the weirdest most NOT normal thing I could eat. So, what is "normal"? It is different for all of us. Whenever there is a potluck type meal at work, I love this because it allows us to see the diversity of our friends through the food they bring. I know there is the occasional person who could care less about food and when they bring in a super size bag of Cool Ranch Doritos, so like there is collateral damage in any worthy investment. Korean food amazes me because it is enjoyed and shared as a celebration of life, it's achievements, friends, family, and praises the differences in everything. Here is to those differences. May they continue to flavor our lives.