the little stone

Food has been the great connector between my mom and me. We had a highly contentious relationship when I was growing up, and it wasn’t until I started to learn about my mom as a person, instead of just a mom, that we began getting along. The process of getting to know her as her own person started over learning about her delicious food. Using food as an avenue to see my mom as more than just a mom might seem counterintuitive, but cooking is one of my mom’s hobbies. She takes great pride in the food she creates and feeding her kids with her delicious meals. She’s universally known as one heck of a cook! My family also has a unique culinary tradition in that my grandparents are from villages that are now part of North Korea. So some of the Korean dishes my mom cooks are not widely known.

Though there are some aspects of my Korean culture I’ve deliberately tried to part ways with (that’s for another post), Korean food is something I want to carry on across generations. My family’s dishes will eventually be lost if my brother and I don’t actively try to learn how to cook them ourselves.

Like most Koreans, my mom’s memorized all the ingredients and measures them with her eye. This presents some problems when trying to write down recipes for her dishes, as she doesn’t know exactly how many tablespoons of a spice someone should use. She’s also big on improvising. Nevertheless, she and I will provide our best estimation. The intention behind this series is to push me to learn how to cook these dishes from my mom (instead of just saying I want to), and to document and share what I learn along the way. Enjoy, and if you’d like to request any recipes, let me know in the comments below or on Instagram @thelittlestoneblog!