food is love.

oysters and pearls

the french laundry, chef/owner thomas keller

Every holiday season, my family gets together for three weeks. It’s the one time during the year where we are all under one roof and my mom cooks up the best Korean dishes I have ever tasted. My mom preps each late December by stocking the freezer and fridge with ingredients that she knows she’ll have to utilize when the three Soh siblings enter the household. Once each of us step foot in the house, the requests start pouring out.

“Oh man, I miss that dish you make with the braised pork!”

“Can we eat some Korean BBQ?”

“This homemade kimchi is the best! Can you also make some kkakdooggi?”

“It’s cold outside, can we have jjam bbong for lunch?”

And all my mom does is nod and asks us when we’d like to have it. We are so spoiled.

Food is love.

As most of you know, I love to eat out; haute cuisine, fine dining, hole-in-the-wall, whatever. If it has good food, I’m there. But 99% of the restaurants I go to are with one person. She is my culinary partner. I make it a point to eat with her because for some reason, watching her eat makes me happy. When I eat out alone or with friends, I can focus all my attention on the execution of the food. But when I eat with her, a part of me hopes that the kitchen is putting on its best that night. I want her to enjoy the food because it makes me enjoy my food. After so many meals together, it’s kind of pointless to ask her if she enjoyed each dish. I only have to look at her lips and her eyes. If she enjoys her first bite, a small smile forms and her eyes widen and sort of twinkle. It’s a look of adoration and personally, I like to think that I made that happen.

Food is love.

My sister sometimes criticizes me for my “snobby” attitude when it comes to food. But I can’t help but point out the hypocrisy in some people’s approach to dining. So you go out to eat at Citysearch’s Top 10 Restaurants in Los Angeles? Oh, that definitely means you’re a ‘foodie’. (Side note: I hate that word) I’ve seen recent positive trends in my sister’s dining habits. She’s trying new restaurants and expanding her palate. She’s starting to develop her own approach to food and at times, I feel like she’s inherited that same “snobby” attitude, although much more subtle. On top of all this, she’s cooking so much more and sharing her culinary soul with her friends. Seeing her interest in restaurants, cooking, and food in general makes me so proud.

Food is love.

Dinner with old friends is one of the best ways to spend my down-time. Some friends and I have found a restaurant that we really enjoy. We put on bibs and the servers throw down bags of crab, shrimp, lobster boiled in Shabang! sauce, corn, and French fries. It’s a delicious feast and it’s a affirmation of how eating with your hands makes a meal so much more enjoyable. Cracking crab legs and peeling back shrimp while bits and pieces of shell and sauce ricochet off each other only makes the night more enjoyable. Coupled with old memories of our days in college, catching up with old friends over some good food is certainly one of the most underappreciated aspects of life.

Food is love.

I’ve recently been trying to cook more Korean dishes on my own. As a result, a lot of my conversations with my mom have revolved around recipes and how she cooks the dishes I’ve come to love. My mom always tells me what people in Korea used to say when she was growing up.

“Men weren’t allowed in the kitchen back then because they were told that if they stepped foot inside, their penises would fall off.”

Despite this, she still passes down recipes and advice on cooking traditional Korean dishes. I think she’s realized my passion for food and my genuine interest in learning. So far, she’s taught me how to make a handful of dishes and I still have to try a couple more recipes, with her guidance on the phone, of course. But for some reason, even though she entrusts me with all these recipes, every time I come home, she always makes the same dishes for me, packed up in tupperware, ready for me before I leave. I love my mom.

Food is love.

Part of me thinks that my affinity for fine dining comes from my dad. Since I was younger, he always took us to places that we’d never tried. To this day, every time he comes up for breakfast, he suggests a new place for us to eat at. I don’t know why, but food is something that he encourages us to try and something he doesn’t mind spending money on. I remember back in high school, I got an allowance. Part of that allowance was for my lunches at school. But I would always go over budget and my gas money would go to spicy chickens at Carl’s Jr. and chicken soft tacos at Del Taco. I’d go over budget sometimes and one time, he asked, slightly frustrated, “Where are you spending all your money?” I told him, a little sheepishly, “I spent it on food.” He said, “Oh, okay” and proceeded to give me more money. For some reason, it was okay.

Food is love.

Love can be shown through food, but food is most definitely love. There is no way around it. Food is the love for the ingredients you use, for the people you share with, and in the pieces of your soul that you part with.