Day 10: Enjoying Mom's Cooking

I conducted my daily kid-survey to see how hungry they were - a determining factor in the amount of effort I put into making dinner - and it turns out both had snacked and neither were hungry. My plans to make (and blog) about gyro sandwiches will have to wait until tomorrow. When I only have to feed myself, I usually eat from the abundance of Korean food in the bahn chahn and kim chee fridges thanks to my parents. The kids like Korean food but only periodically so when the three of us eat together, it is usually other things.

When my mother cooks, it is no small affair. Korean food, due to its high salt content, will keep for several days so when you cook, you cook A LOT and it is a major production that lasts most of the day. When my parents make their bi-weekly trek to Koreatown (about 30 minutes away), they come home with dozens of bags full of napa cabbage and Korean radishes, giant tins of soy sauce and sesame oil, plastic bins full of chili paste and soybean paste. On kim chee days, my mom makes enough kim chee to stock a small grocery store. Kim chee ji gae (soup made from kim chee) is made by the vat-ful. And dough for bahng rises in giant plastic bowls.

Speaking of bahng... Today my mother taught a friend how to make these Korean steamed rolls that are similar to Chinese dim sum. She, herself, learned how to make these rolls a couple of years ago from a friend and has since become famous (in Korean circles) for them. As I mentioned, when she makes bahng, it is in huge quantities and it takes all day; the house is filled with the tantalizing smell of yeasty, freshly steamed bread for hours. My mom makes so many of these rolls for special occasions that last year she bought a freezer chest to store them, what we now refer to as "the bahng freezer." Lucky for me, today was a bahng day.

Dinner also came from the bahn chahn fridge. Several days ago Mom made bahn chahn to take to an elderly couple (long time family friends who made it possible for our family to emigrate to the United States in 1970) and subsequently stocked our fridge with a dozen or so plastic containers of Korean stir-fried vegetables. These vegetables - usually carrots, zucchini, bean sprouts, spinach, fiddlehead fern, and cucumbers - are specifically meant to be eaten all mixed together with Korean chili paste and a fried egg, a dish called bibim bop (loosely translated means bibim = mixed and bop = rice).

This is one of my all-time favorite dishes. During my high school years I attended a boarding school that was a four hour drive from where we lived and therefore made it home usually only one weekend a month. Whenever I got home, no matter how late it was, there would be bibim bop and homemade kim chee waiting. The ultimate comfort food for a Korean child going to school far away in rural northern Michigan.

Sorry, no recipes today. You can find lots of recipes for bibim bop on the web but personally, I find it to be very labor-intensive and time-consuming and never tastes as good as when a Korean Mom makes it. However, Korean restaurants typically do a very good job, usually for under $10. BTW, if you're vegetarian, be sure to order it without the beef.

My Shopping List

Nothing - I made do with what I had on hand.

The Tally

• The day's tally: $0
• Total this week so far: $143