HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY :)

We need not vilify, deify, idealize, sanctify, or canonize our mothers. Let's let them be human like we are and love them as much as they love us anyway.

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY TO ANYONE WHO LOVES SOMEONE LIKE A MOTHER WOULD.

With love,

shinae

Soaked Soybeans & Memories of 할머니...

I'd had these dry soybeans, or 콩 (pronounced KOHNG) in Korean, for over a year when I was taking inventory of my pantry last night and unearthed them.

So I decided I'd make some soymilk with them and make 콩비지찌개 (KOHNGbiji JJIgeh), a stew made with the solids, from the byproduct, which requires soaking/reconstituting, as with any dish made with dry beans.

And when I gave them a stir just now to remove the outer casings and smelled that distinctly green and nutty smell of dry soybeans soaking, I was immediately taken back to being in elementary school and helping my paternal grandmother (할머니 - pronounced HAHLmuhnee) pick the dud beans out of the batch so she could sprout the rest in cheesecloths in an old, broken washing machine to grow soybean sprouts (콩나물 - KOHNGnahmool).

My father's mother, probably from some combination of talent and poverty, had the greenest thumb I've ever known. She could grow anything, and she would collect rainwater in trash cans to water her plants and wash her hair because she thought it was best. (Let's just say I did not inherit her green thumb, but I think I did inherit my sense of frugality from her.)

할머니 passed away years ago at the ripe old age of something that was really close to a hundred, and I don't have that many fond memories of her to be honest - probably some combination of my feisty personality and what seemed to me her preference for the male children in the family (not uncommon for women of her culture and time) - but that's one of them. And we should all take all the fond memories we can get, I think. :)

shinae

Something About How Family Is Just Like Cooking (oh, and expletives)...

As you might already know, I share a lot about my family. And if it happens that you only see the good, easy and positive aspects, it might be the timing of my posts in your stream or that you're just an overwhelmingly positive person. But I really do try to present my life and relationships in a balanced way.

And I hope it comes across that while I am absolutely grateful that we are a mostly happy and blessed family, our relationships are not without their ups and downs, conflicts, struggles, plateaus and frustrations.

I also hope that people understand that this life you see in my posts and pictures, while genuine, was not always this way for me - not as a mother, not as a wife, and not as a daughter - or for us as a family. It took years, decades in some cases, for the people involved to live with, create, perpetuate, suffer from, deny, then finally recognize and work through lots of difficult and complicated issues, sometimes in textbook "healthy" ways, many times not, to get to this place. Sometimes it's too much *me*, not enough *them*. Other times too much them, not enough me. And finally juggling and rebalancing, we hit a healthy combination of *us*.

And the issues, while fewer, still exist, and we still have to keep cycling through them the same way, but hopefully more efficiently and less painfully with each turn.

But what's resulted is pretty much what you see - many moments of happiness, gratitude, warmth, fulfillment and contentment peppered with fewer and fewer - but still very real - moments of unhappiness, ingratitude, frustation, confusion and general unpeacefulness within ourselves and with one another.

How we got to this mostly happy point in our lives is that at some point we each and together determined that it's not an option not to keep trying, even through those moments when we're convinced we don't want to. 

And since I find myself so rarely blogging here about food anymore, I'm going to stretch this noodle a bit to say that in this way, and in so many ways, cooking is a lot like family.

It's a basic reality, necessity, and obligation of life, even if our modern way of living has progressively led us to believe it's not. We start out thinking it should be easy and intuitive to nourish ourselves in a balanced and enjoyable way, but we hit some snags - burn a pancake, oversalt a stew, overhandle our dough, or neglect our risotto - and taste the acrid, salty, chewy, gummy mess we've made and decide it's just easier to walk away from the mess in the kitchen and let a bunch of disinterested others - restaurants, fast food places, frozen dinners, protein shakes, power bars, junk food - be the primary caretaker of our bodily nutrition.

And every once in a while - maybe Valentine's Day or Hot Date Night - we figure we'll conveniently saunter back into that neglected kitchen and whip us up something perfect and delicious only to find we end up creating the same nasty mess we made that LAST time we were in the kitchen forever ago. Because we didn't put in the practice, patience, diligence, dedication and heart it requires to get to that point where we'll know with a fair amount of certainty that we can walk into that kitchen and whip up something perfectly delicious and fortifying without destroying things.

But that means doing 

- a lot of mundane things (boiling water), 

- a lot of boring and repetitive things (peeling tons of potatoes), 

- a lot of things that will make you cry (chopping garlic and onions),

- a lot of things that are a little tricky (poaching eggs)

- a lot of things that are really disappointing (deflating a souffle)

- a lot of things that are extremely painful (hacking a finger, sticking said finger into a pot of melted sugar because you are a fucking idiot, you really are), and

- a lot of things that are downright maddening (mistaking salt for sugar, stuff like that...)

And then one day you look up to find that you've put in enough practice, patience, diligence, dedication and heart to know that 8 or 9 times out of 10, you can reliably produce for yourself and your family - as we all should - something delicious, nutritious, nourishing and fulfilling. 

And just like family, there will be lots of expletives along the way...

¡Shit! ¡Fuckfuckingfuckety! and ¡Goddammit!-ly yours,

shinae :)

P.S. We're doing an African Food Cookalong this month, if you care to join us. Because what is a blog for if not shameless self promotion??? :D

Something About Doors Opening & Closing...

"When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us."

~ Alexander Graham Bell

Patch o' dirt in our new back yard. :)

This morning's usual food programming was interrupted by a visit to the OB/GYN to confirm our suspicion regarding certain events of earlier this week.

And indeed it is confirmed: I miscarried. And I am otherwise perfectly fine and healthy.

That's it. Nothing major, and nothing minor - a fact of life as sure as pregnancy itself, specially the older we get. And I did turn 40 this year, after all. :)

So while we thought it would be nice for Izzy to have a peer sibling, I also promised myself long ago that my child bearing era would end when I turned 40. And I've learned not to have too many hard and fast rules about Life, but I've also learned that determination and decision are sometimes necessary to achieve certain good things.

Dean and I together have determined and decided that we are done making babies, that we are perfectly happy and grateful that we have three beautiful children between us, that we are going to raise them to be a family even when we're long gone, and that there are lots of things to grow in this here patch of dirt behind our new home, both literal and metaphorical: fruits, vegetables, flowers, travel, goals, and other good dreams.

Thanks always for your support, encouragement and good juju in all we experience and endeavor, peeps.

Looking forward to continuing to share it with you. :)

shinae

Something About My Medium Asian Papa...

February 1996 - Me 23, Dad 57

Me and my dad at my first wedding shower at my parents' house in Garden Grove. One of the last pics we took together (we weren't much of a picture taking family then) before Dad's health began to take a number of sharp wrong turns - some hereditary, some self inflicted. 

I don't post many pics of him in the present because it breaks my heart to see how his body, and now lately his mind as well, are failing him. Even harder some days because it makes me sad and angry that so much of what he suffers today is a result of self abuse and neglect.

But looking back, I can tell that Dad fought a number of demons, not the least of which were growing up in poverty without a father during the Japanese occupation, and his great talent and potential being neglected for the tradition that put his older brother at the forefront of the family's attention and resources. Not to mention that damned addictive personality and physiology that fueled his excesses for too many years to undo.

Hot tempered and good natured at the same time, a lover of animals, and always driven to create (he built houses and aviaries and water fountains and fish ponds and outdoor decks with a Marlboro hanging out the side of his mouth the whole time), he gave me the gifts of a singing voice, a goofy sense of humor, a persevering sense of fairness and forgiveness, and, despite being a man of few words, many pearls of good and true wisdom that he knew were often beyond his own ability to live.

I wish Life had been kinder to Dad, but for all of what he perceived to be his failures and shortcomings, the things he did for his family ensured that Life was much kinder to me.

Happy Fathers' Day, Dad. I thank you, and I love you. ♥

shinae