So I realize that this blog is my outlet and so posts aren’t going to come out on a regular basis. I mull things over constantly in my mind and cling desperately to moments of inspiration. So it got me down into a funk, among many other reasons mind you, and I felt listless and whiny.
My mom asked me to go pick up something for her to take to lunch for work. She suggested roasted chicken but struck that because I’m not eating meat during Lent. I thought it was silly and said I’d would go pick it up for her. While I was at it, she asked for some tomatoes. I get to the grocery store and the tomatoes didn’t look too bad. I saw some shallots and thought “I’m going to make something for myself.”
*Before I go on, I would really like to add here how easy it is to buy food that’s made for us. In many cases, this is really a disservice to our well being. I’m not saying that you should make curry from scratch whenever you want it. Items like ghee, korean chile paste (koh-chu jang), and even chicken broth can be labor intensive for it’s part in an overall meal. But you’re likely to clean a knife and cutting board daily with the rest of your dishes. You can tailor so much more to taste with little effort and have something that’s your own. Not Lean Cuisine’s or Sara Lee’s. Anyway, moving on…
What I really needed was a moment to control something and feel like I could successfully do something. My piano is horribly out of tune now and it won’t hold because the pinboard is worn out (it’s over 70 years old). So when I play it’s just agonizing. My saxophone is out of adjustment and the only person I really trust to fix everything up is in NYC and very busy. I haven’t had a decent sub day where I felt I made an impact on any of the kids in quite a while. My body is feeling broken. Every time I go train at my Tae Kwon Do school, I’m reminded of my diminishing energy and just feeling heavy in my body. So many of the talents I find solace in weren’t acting as havens in the storm.
I learned to cook from my mother. I watched her. She has never used a recipe as far as I can tell. I also enjoyed watching cooking shows on the Food Network and I’ve worked around kitchens for a very a few years. Despite growing up on Korean food, I can’t make kimchi. I know some Korean barbecue recipes but you’d choke when I realize how simple they are. Actually, you’d be surprised how some of the best foods don’t require a lot of work. Just a basic understanding of how to put ingredients together. Sort of like blending colors on a palette to paint a picture or voicing the right notes to play a chord.
If any of you have heard of Battle Hymn of a Tiger Mother then you have a glimpse of how critical my mother could be. She’s not typical though. I got to play the saxophone and she had no problems when I wanted to learn to play jazz. I was able to have sleepovers and never had a curfew. But I had to commit to things. I couldn’t take up Tae Kwon Do when I was young unless I committed to attaining a black belt (I did but I wanted to quit by the time I was a red belt). Whenever I brought home a less than stellar report card, there wasn’t any consolation – e.g. At least you improved from the last grading period.
In a way though, my mom lived by the same principle. Unless I outwardly relished what I was eating, she didn’t thought her cooking wasn’t what it should be and took steps to make sure it would be better next time. If I didn’t have a look of pleasant surprise when she came home from getting her hair done, she would call up one of her friends and get it redone by the next week. I even remember when I was young and tried to sew up a hole in my teddy bear that she painstakingly took it and fixed it until I couldn’t even see a trace of the tear through the faux fur.
So I came home with her chicken and some stuff to make salsa. I had a friend in my youth whose mother (100% mexicana) made the best salsa ever. At first I didn’t like it because the flavors were so powerful. I preferred the muddy flavors of brand salsa in a jar. By the time I was in high school, I would want her to make her salsa and taco salad every time I visited. She said that she cooked well for the same reason my mom cooked well. They loved us. That love drove them to make sure they knew how to find and use the best ingredients for the food they made. That’s why she painstakingly peeled and scored mangoes after dinner for us (she would also sprinkle chile powder and drizzle honey on them for an extra kick). It’s why mom would take a bushel of napa cabbages and make kimchi for the family and her other friends.
So I remember when I first began learning to cook. Nothing in high school was quite that good but once I had a kitchen of my own to work with in college, I started figuring things out. My first real success was making kal-bi (grilled marinated short ribs) that got my mom’s approval. It wasn’t a rave review. She simply said that it had taste. This is where translating between languages is difficult. It’s sort of like “umami” in Japanese but basically saying that there’s a satisfying quality to the food. There’s no word in the English language for it and I have yet to find a French word for it either. A few years later, I made Thanksgiving dinner because my mom had to work that day and was going to be too tired to cook. I had the extra curveball of having a vegan sister. I made an eggplant dish that both of them loved. My mom took the rest of it to work the next day and her coworkers enjoyed it so much that she called me from work to tell me about it. It was a great feeling.
When I pulled the leftover vine from the tomato, the pristine smell hit my nose like smelling salts. There was a menthol-like cool to the aroma and let the feeling take over. Jalapenos were split, cilantro was ripped from the stalks and shallots were peeled. Cumin, vinegar, salt, pepper were sprinkled in with the veggies and I began to pulse the mixture together in the food processor. Now, I would like to say that I made my own tortilla chips but that’s a lot more labor intensive for something I don’t eat every day. But I dipped in a chip and tasted and I felt good. You know what felt better? My mom came in and tasted it. She started talking about not needing to have the chicken for lunch tomorrow since I made plenty of salsa. Her appetite was piqued and she took some chicken, a large helping of salsa and tucked in. She approved.
berniemacx 