Best Food Writing 2010 Part 16

I do. Or I did. Before I got pregnant, before I had kids. Now I've got a one-year-old who will eat anything-shabu shabu, red curry, sand-and a three-and-a-half-year-old who will eat almost nothing. Consequently, this food critic has learned a few things about food.

I'll call him Beans. That's not his real name. But I used to sing him a lullaby about b.u.mblebees when he was a baby, and over time, bee turned to beans.

Beans was born colicky and beset by acid-reflux. Tilt him off an upright axis and his stomach acid would bubble past a little poorly functioning valve and make him scream. Until he was eight months old, he had to be held upright at all times. My husband would stay up walking and holding him until 3 a.m., at which point the alarm clock would ring and I would wake to hold him.

Things have gotten better, though not much. His stomach still hurts all the time, and he doesn't like food. He eats about a dozen things, all white, all things you'd want if you were recovering from stomach flu: pears, apples, Saltines, white bread, pretzels, Cheerios, string cheese, poached chicken meatb.a.l.l.s, b.u.t.ter, and ice cream (rarely). That about wraps it up.

If you read the foodie press, you'll know it's a point of pride among today's parents to brag about what arcane foods their child delights in: j.a.panese nori paper, capers, Roquefort cheese. Ideally, the sentence you want to drop at the playground runs something like this: "Little Gabriel is such a sn.o.b, he won't eat ca.s.soulet with truffle oil-only real truffles. I'm going to go bankrupt!"

Not us.

This is painful. As a food critic, it destroys the dream I had when I first got pregnant, that of running around to obscure taco holes and barbecue dives with my little sidekick. More urgently, as a parent, it means I have no way to bribe him.

Other children consider being sent to bed without supper punishment. Being sent to bed without supper would be Beans's preferred evening. (My husband and I have twice taken our pediatrician's advice to simply offer food, without insisting Beans eat it. Both times, after two days, when not a single morsel of food had crossed his lips, we buckled.) Other children can be coerced into all sorts of activities by offering or withholding dessert. We're as likely to get Beans to eat a cupcake as we are to get him to eat a block of soap. A few weeks ago, I got a bag of jelly beans in the mail as part of some promotion. I brought them home. We got Beans an egg carton, into which he happily sorted the jelly beans by color. Over the next week, he did this several more times-and not one jelly bean went missing. He has a bag full of Dum-Dum lollipops from which he has removed all the wrappers. He sticks them into modeling clay to make sculptures. Child-rearing experts tell us that one of the chief predictors of a child's future success is the ability to delay gratification, to choose two cookies in 15 minutes rather than just one cookie now. There are no studies on children who want no cookies ever.

Now, you may be thinking: Why don't you just cut the kid some slack and let him not eat? Isn't the ultimate state of enlightenment to live without desire? Hasn't Beans achieved this at the tender age of three?

If you are thinking this, it is probably because you are an idealistic 14-year-old without kids. I know this because I was once an idealistic 14-year-old without kids, and that idealistic voice still echoes in my head. I find myself incredulous how deep and dark my desire is to lure or coerce my kid into eating. This uneasy part of me, however, has been pummeled into submission by the panic-stricken part of me, the part of me that can't shake the memory of being at a friend's vacation house in Wisconsin where we met another family with a child beset by the same cl.u.s.ter of acid-reflux symptoms. This child's family didn't force her to eat. She was five years old, but she was the size of a slight two-year-old. Her family explained that her teeth were so soft, from lack of nutrients and vomiting, that she would probably soon get child-sized dentures.

So we force him to eat. Here's how: We turn on the television. There have been studies showing that sugar is more appealing to rats then cocaine. In my experience, television, to a curious toddler, is more powerful than either. We turn on a screen, and sit behind him popping bites of meatball and cheese in his mouth. It's a terrible option, except for all the other ones. I've heard other parents call television "the zombie machine." Exactly.

Then there's YouTube. For a while Beans was obsessed with church bells, and we would watch videos of ringing church bells, as well as glockenspiels, carillons, and hand bells. Later it was marble-runs and domino constructions falling down. Then he discovered a show that airs on the Discovery Channel called "How It's Made." The show consists of five-minute segments explaining the construction of crayons, novelty ice-cream treats, push brooms, and everything else. Beans' favorite was about doughnuts.

At first, I didn't think too much about it. It's not atypical for Beans to watch a two-minute YouTube clip hundreds of times. There's a 1979 Sesame Street abstract animation, set to a piece by Philip Gla.s.s, called "Geometry of Circles" that he must have watched a thousand times. But one night, I found him in his bath, shoving bath toys through the water, reciting: "A high-speed mixer works the yeast dough, then workers pull it off the machine into bins. From there, it goes into a hopper that extrudes the dough as a sheet. . . ." Not long after that, I found him shoving his favorite blanket into a drawer, slamming the drawer shut, then extracting the blanket and transferring it to a s.p.a.ce beneath a footstool, all while providing this commentary: "Doughnuts used to be called 'oily-cakes' because they were deep-fried in pork fat. They were ball-shaped when Dutch pilgrims brought them to America. . . ."

"Beans, are you making doughnuts?" I asked.

"I am," he said. "I am making doughnuts. . . . A high speed mixer works the yeast dough. . . ."

Was this the thin end of a wedge?

I thought so-if doughnuts could somehow become more than a mechanical process to Beans, that is. I ordered some books.

Children's picture-book literature involving doughnuts is limited, but uniformly excellent. There's Arnie the Doughnut Arnie the Doughnut, by Laurie Keller, about a young ring of dough "chocolate-covered with bright-colored candy sprinkles," who is made through a series of numbered steps. Beans particularly enjoys step two: "Deep-fried," which involves Arnie swimming in oil and saying, "I'm soaking in boiling grease but I LOVE IT!"

After Arnie meets his fellow doughnuts in a pastry case, a rude doughnut hole points at a jelly doughnut and shrieks, "Eeeooo! His brains are leaking out!" To which the doughnut replies, "It's not brains, silly. It's jelly!"

Arnie is nearly eaten by his purchaser, Mr. Bing, which horrifies Arnie, and so he phones his baker to warn him, at which point he is informed that doughnuts are, in fact, made to be eaten. Arnie can't believe him.

"Are the other doughnuts aware of this arrangement?" he gasps.

There's also The Donut Chef The Donut Chef, by Bob Staake, which details the war between "two donut shops on one small street! For customers they did compete!" This compet.i.tion first involves discounts and extra frosting, but it soon devolves into something else: "Some were square and some were starry, some looked just like calamari!"

Eventually, after all the peculiar shapes have been mastered, bizarre flavorings are brought to bear, until the day a small girl named Debbie Sue ventures in, looking for a plain glazed doughnut. There is none. "We've donuts laced with kiwi jam/And served inside an open clam!" Staake writes. "Donuts made with huckleberry /(Don't be scared; they're kind of hairy)/And donuts made from spiced rum pears/So popular with millionaires!"

I bristled the first time I read The Donut Chef The Donut Chef. (Were children's picture books really going to criticize molecular gastronomy? Really?) But over time it's grown on me, especially when I hear Beans reciting the doughnut-positive messages in the book: "Then all the people sang in praise/Of simple donuts dipped in glaze!"

But my favorite doughnut book is a recent re-issue of 1973's Who Needs Donuts? Who Needs Donuts? It's an odd, psychedelic-looking pen-and-ink drawn book by Mark Alan Stamaty, a famous ill.u.s.trator whose work has appeared in the likes of the It's an odd, psychedelic-looking pen-and-ink drawn book by Mark Alan Stamaty, a famous ill.u.s.trator whose work has appeared in the likes of the Village Voice Village Voice, Slate Slate, and New York Review of Books New York Review of Books. The book tells the story of a boy who can never get enough doughnuts, and so one day he rides his tricycle to the city to get his fill. He pairs up with a professional doughnut-gatherer. As he and his pal roam the city, they often cross paths with a bereft-looking woman.

"Who needs donuts when you've got love?" she asks.

The answer? The bereft old woman herself, of course. After an escaped bull pierces a giant vat of coffee that sits above her bas.e.m.e.nt home, she risks drowning until the boy uses his many, many doughnuts to rescue her-by soaking up all the coffee.

Perhaps what I like so much about Who Needs Donuts Who Needs Donuts is that, aside from imagining a world in which children are unafraid of the city, it features the only professional doughnut-gatherer I've ever run across-besides myself. is that, aside from imagining a world in which children are unafraid of the city, it features the only professional doughnut-gatherer I've ever run across-besides myself.

In many years of restaurant criticism, I've written about doughnuts repeatedly. I actually have a sort of road map in my mind of what I consider the best doughnuts in town: There's Mel-O-Glaze, in south Minneapolis, home to the city's best raised-glazed doughnuts, as well as the cake doughnuts that I prefer above all others. Sweet and rich, they're almost like pound cake. Even if I've been to six other doughnut places first, I can always eat a whole doughnut when I get to Mel-O-Glaze, which is saying something.

Then there's the Baker's Wife's, a mere 10 blocks north of Mel-O-Glaze. A lot of people argue that they make the best cake doughnuts in town, and I see that as a respectable opinion. They're less sweet, crisper, and they seem even more old-fas.h.i.+oned than most plain cake doughnuts.

I also really like Wuollet's, which has the area's best selection of the usual suspects: Long Johns, bear claws, and the like. Then there are our other lovable local doughnut places: Sara Jane in Northeast, Rosemark in St. Paul, Granny Donut in West St. Paul, Denny's Fifth Avenue Bakery in Bloomington, the Old Fas.h.i.+oned Donut Shoppe in New Hope.

On the way to Denny's Fifth Avenue Bakery in Bloomington, I fed Beans lines from all the books: "'Scuse me, Mister,' said the tyke, 'But where's the donut that I like? It isn't here, it isn't there-You think it's under that eclair?'"

We zipped down the construction canyon of I-35, between the dinosaur-sized diggers, oblivious to their dusty menace, for the topic of doughnuts was just that riveting. Denny's Fifth Avenue feels like it has been lifted whole from the 1970s; it's all Jimmy Carter bicentennial blue and naugahyde brown, slick, vinyl-touched, and awkward. Beans stood in front of the pastry case like a pro. There they all were, the Long Johns, the cream-filled, the jelly. Arnie had prepared him well for this moment.

"Is that brains leaking out?" Beans asked, rhetorically. "Nah, it's just jelly."

I got a dozen, and he got one just like Arnie, chocolate-covered, with bright-colored candy sprinkles. I placed it on a piece of wax paper and set it on his lap as he sat in his car seat. There it rested for the drive home. I fed him lines from the books all the way home: "Do you doughnuts know you're going to be eaten?" I asked. "Yes, we're delicious!" he replied. "Try us for yourself!"

When we arrived at home, I looked at the doughnut carefully. To the untrained eye, it might have seemed untouched. But there was one small blemish on the icing's surface, as if a thumb had smudged it, or a little mouse had, perhaps, taken a lick.

A few days later, we went to Wuollet's. The one on Hennepin Avenue that always has a pleasant mix of dog-walkers from Lake of the Isles, anti-coffeeshop rebel teens doing homework, and construction workers and tradesmen. We got a box of the a.s.sorted doughnuts. I particularly enjoyed the raised yeast one frosted with chocolate. It had a deep real-cocoa taste. However, even to my wishful eye, I knew that the sprinkle-topped doughnut I got for Beans was completely untouched. I coined a name for such perfectly lovely doughnuts that went unsampled: They were Holders. Beans liked holding them. In fact, he liked them so much that he would spend 24 hours holding on to them, moving them from plate to bag repeatedly. But if any icing got on his hands, he'd demand: "Mom, can you clean it up?"

We made a trip to Mel-O-Glaze. Sun twinkled from the wide parkway outside and into the vintage bakery. I thought the doughnuts were great. The raised glazed was light and dewy within, the cake doughnut was sweet and buoyant in just the right way. But, it, too, was a Holder.

We went to A Baker's Wife's, a tiny bakery cluttered as a church sale with baked goods, but the crisp little gem there was also a Holder. We even made the trip to Granny Donuts a nowhere-looking chain in West St. Paul. The doughnuts there were, at best, average, cold, and greasy tasting. I wished I had made mine a Holder, instead of a Taster.

Doughnuts, it turned out, were not the thin end of the wedge. In fact, doughnuts were starting to become a lot like parenting itself, which in my experience is a series of minute, constant, intolerable failures, interleaved with exhaustion, and punctuated by moments of heart-rending cuteness that somehow add up to general success. The success, of course, comes not from anything one does, but because of nature's plan: The kids grow. Before I had kids I'd hear things like, "Parenting is humbling," and I'd put that in the same basket as, "Life is sweet," and "Happiness is worth pursuing." Whatever. Now I know that parenting is humbling because you can put all the mighty force of your heart and mind into it and you will still be failing. Where'd I put that remote control?

Still, while doughnuts were looking to be a series of failures they also had become a habit, and when I picked Beans up from preschool one day, he asked for a doughnut. It was the end of the day when we stopped at Wuollet's, and they were cleaned out. So we crossed the street to SuperAmerica. I hoisted him up so he could peer inside the plastic doors at the plastic-looking donuts on their plastic trays, and Beans chose a raised-glazed and a vanilla-iced with bright candy sprinkles. Such doughnuts are the heroes, respectively, of The Donut Chef The Donut Chef and and Arnie the Doughnut Arnie the Doughnut. Beans put them in a plastic bag, and carried them around like carnival goldfish all evening. The doughnuts even came with us when we walked the neighbor's dog to the neighborhood garden. And as we sat in this garden, next to an old wis.h.i.+ng well, Beans turned a handle.

Ka-thunk, ka-thunk.

"Mom," Beans said, "Mom I want to make a wish in the wis.h.i.+ng well."

"Yes," I said. "You can make a wish. What do you want to wish for?"

"I wish for doughnuts," he said. He looked at me intensely, a little smile tickling his mouth with its little baby teeth slightly too far apart. "I wish for doughnuts," he said again.

I took the doughnut out of the bag and, to my astonishment, Beans actually tried eating it. Of course, he didn't know how, and went in icing-first, from the top. In the process, he gave himself a clown nose of white icing, and a matching goatee and moustache, too.

All I could think was: Really? A SuperAmerica doughnut?

I re-direct your attention to the central tenet of my professional existence, namely, that good food is better than bad food. This could not stand.

We went back to Mel-O-Glaze. Those doughnuts were still Holders. Back to Baker's Wife's. Holders. But then one day we were heading back to the house from the playground when Beans requested a doughnut. We stopped at a coffee shop with baked goods straight from some warehouse store. Beans got a pink doughnut with candy sprinkles-and began eating it straight-away, spinning it until he ate all the sprinkles and icing off the top. His one-year-old sister, sitting next to him in a double stroller finished her doughnut, then lunged for his. Amid the tussle, his doughnut cracked in half.

"Mom!" Beans shrieked, preparing to cry. Until he realized the breaking had revealed a secret inner-nugget of icing and sprinkles. Which he ate.

And now Beans eats doughnuts. I feel pride, because eating more, and not less, is an enormous triumph in our little world, and somehow we got from eating less to eating more. But more than that I feel painfully amused, because as per usual, triumph comes at the end of a chain of near total failure. And this chain of failures has even forced me to come to terms with something that readers have been telling me for years, an idea that I have so hotly resisted-that good enough is indeed good enough, that any port in a storm is better than none, and that there may well be no such thing as a bad doughnut. Sometimes.

HOME RUN: MY JOURNEY BACK TO KOREAN FOOD.

By Roy Ahn From Gastronomica Gastronomica

Though he now lives in Cambridge, Ma.s.sachusetts, Roy Ahn has had many hometowns-Seoul, South Korea; the Detroit suburbs; the San Fernando Valley in Southern California. His evolving sense of "Korean-ness"-epitomized by Korean food-is still a work in progress.

Last winter, I dined with my then-pregnant wife, Amy, at a Korean restaurant in a suburban strip mall, where all good Korean food establishments seem to be. This hole-in-the-wall, located on a stretch of highway outside Boston flanked by retail plazas and ranch houses, was filled with Koreans like myself, plus a Caucasian or two, Amy being one. The proprietor sat us in a spot away from the section with barbecue-grill tabletops, but the smell of seared beef mixed with garlic, soy sauce, and brown sugar still permeated our clothing. (Pop quiz: How long does the smell of beef bulgogi bulgogi linger in a pair of blue jeans? Answer: Until it gets thrown into a was.h.i.+ng machine.) linger in a pair of blue jeans? Answer: Until it gets thrown into a was.h.i.+ng machine.) The waitresses spun like dervishes from table to kitchen to table, bringing out vegetable and fish banchan banchan dishes in one pa.s.s and clearing them away in another, with little respite between customers to wipe their beads of sweat. I took particular notice of the diners' white bowls, which reminded me of outsized pieces from Go, my late father's favorite board game. dishes in one pa.s.s and clearing them away in another, with little respite between customers to wipe their beads of sweat. I took particular notice of the diners' white bowls, which reminded me of outsized pieces from Go, my late father's favorite board game.

After a cup of tea and our own banchan banchan, we awaited the main courses. Mine would be galbi-chim galbi-chim-braised short ribs-served with rice. I imagined pulling the meat off the bone and the flecks of burnt sesame seeds staining the white rice a deep brown, so I was understandably shocked when the waitress placed before me a bowl of oxtail soup. Had she misunderstood? No, I quickly realized. I had ordered the wrong dish.

On the surface, confusing galbi-tang galbi-tang with with galbi-chim galbi-chim would seem an innocuous lapse. Both are beef dishes whose names share the same Korean-language prefix. But the two couldn't be more different. Imagine a Bavarian confusing knockwurst with bratwurst! As I lowered pieces of would seem an innocuous lapse. Both are beef dishes whose names share the same Korean-language prefix. But the two couldn't be more different. Imagine a Bavarian confusing knockwurst with bratwurst! As I lowered pieces of kimchi kimchi into the beef broth to give it a spice kick, and as Amy sipped her way through her bowl of bean-curd-and-vegetable stew, I wondered whether my slipup was an omen: could I be losing my ethnic bearings? If so, there could hardly be a worse time. into the beef broth to give it a spice kick, and as Amy sipped her way through her bowl of bean-curd-and-vegetable stew, I wondered whether my slipup was an omen: could I be losing my ethnic bearings? If so, there could hardly be a worse time.

I was harboring all sorts of yuppie anxieties about first-time fatherhood-the unit cost of diapers and 529 College Savings Plans chief among them. But as a Korean-American, I was also worrying about our son's cultural ident.i.ty. I especially looked forward to introducing him to my culinary heritage. That task would be solely up to me-Amy is from a multiple-generation Wisconsin family with European roots, and our culinary union is best described as Land of Rice meets Land of Cheese. Consider some of the foods you might see in her parents' house near Madison: pepper Jack, b.u.t.terka.s.se, and Limberger cheeses, along with sauerkraut, pickled Brussels sprouts, and wursts of all kinds.

As for my parents, they won't be around to introduce my son to their native foods, teach him how to bow properly to his elders, sing Korean nursery rhymes, or explain to him that the number four represents bad luck for Koreans. Both of them died in a car accident when I was twenty-four.

I was born in Seoul in 1972. My parents, a physician and an elementary school teacher, were concerned about raising children in South Korea at a time when military conflict with North Korea seemed imminent, so they immigrated to the United States with my older sister and me when I was four. My official, stamped Korean pa.s.sport noted that I was "90 cm" tall and weighed "11 kg"-about the equivalent of a twenty-five-pound bag of rice. But soon enough I began to grow, my chubbiness a testament to my successful American acculturation.

As a kid living in suburban Detroit, I loved two things above all else: Baskin-Robbins and the Detroit Tigers. (I still think the ice-cream-inside-miniature-batting-helmet remains one of the industry's greatest inventions.) Inside our apartment I would mark out my own baseball diamond, sprinkle the floor with talc.u.m powder, and, using my father's thick medical textbooks as bases, slide my way across the room as though I were Lou Brock. Like many American boys, I dreamed of becoming a professional baseball player but lacked the athleticism to play beyond high school. My dream of pro ball quashed, I once told my mother that I wanted to become president of a Fortune 500 company. She laughed. A Caucasian businessman would never allow a Korean to have that job, she said, steering me into the sciences instead.

My childhood love of ice cream notwithstanding, my favorite Korean dish was a bowl of rice drizzled with soy sauce and topped with a raw egg. I learned to crack the egg over the rice while it was still piping hot, so the egg would cook a little. Sometimes my mother would add some sliced daikon daikon to this silky porridge that glided so easily down my throat. Over time, I began to add my own flourishes-a handful of cooked ground beef and a pinch of dried red-pepper flakes. to this silky porridge that glided so easily down my throat. Over time, I began to add my own flourishes-a handful of cooked ground beef and a pinch of dried red-pepper flakes.

During my teenage years, after we moved to Los Angeles, I chose to downplay my ethnic roots. I was a Ralph Lauren-clad American teenager living in "The Valley," and my Korean heritage was an inconvenience. This applied to my culinary traditions, too.When I went out, I ate all the things my friends did-pizza, hot dogs, enchiladas, and fries with greasy chili that turned the paper wrapper orange. It's worth noting that two Korean-American boys were among my circle, but we rarely went out for food from the homeland. Whatever the reason, they were much more comfortable than I was with being Korean-American. Still, when my circle of guy friends went out, we'd usually opt for fried zucchini with ranch dressing at Carl's Jr., chicken burritos at a Mexican food chain on Ventura Boulevard, or pasta at the Cheesecake Factory in Beverly Hills, all the while rocking out in our cars to the Beastie Boys and Run-DMC.

When I got home, I chased down all that American food with Korean fare. My mother, who spoke to me almost exclusively in her native tongue, cooked it herself or stocked up on prepared foods from our local Korean supermarkets. Variations of kimchi kimchi abounded: red-pepper-flecked radish cubes, cuc.u.mber slices, bell-flower root, and cabbage. Occasionally, too, there was yellow daikon, which paired well with ground beef, spinach, and rice. Or she would make ginseng chicken stew and abounded: red-pepper-flecked radish cubes, cuc.u.mber slices, bell-flower root, and cabbage. Occasionally, too, there was yellow daikon, which paired well with ground beef, spinach, and rice. Or she would make ginseng chicken stew and j.a.pchae j.a.pchae, a stir-fry of gla.s.s noodles, sliced carrot and onion, slivers of beef, and pink-and-white fishcake in a soy and sesame-oil sauce. Food to fuel the brain for studying deep into the night: a mother's loving manifesto for her son. I never had the heart to tell her that the food had the opposite effect-the sugar crash put me to sleep atop my school papers.

I should mention that our house in California had two refrigerators: one in the kitchen for American food, and one in the garage for the Korean food. I'm not sure why my mother was willing to go dual-fridge. I imagine she'd had enough bellyaching from me about the garlicky stench of "Mom and Dad's food" and complaints of how embarra.s.sing it would be if my friends ever got a whiff of the real stuff we ate. She must have decided it wasn't worth the aggravation.

My father, for his part, took my resistance to Korean food poorly. He'd wanted me to be proud of his homeland. "Italian food smells, too," he once told me. But Korean dishes flavored with garlic smell different than Italian ones, and I imagined the odor exuding from my every pore. Leftover Korean food was even worse, announcing itself like a flatulent guest at a wedding. Never mind that a diet of smelly fermented vegetables, stews, noodles, and meats has nourished Koreans for generations.

You may imagine that my father disapproved of American ways. On the contrary, he immersed himself in the culture of his adopted country. Interstate road trips to amus.e.m.e.nt parks, Kentucky Fried Chicken, bowling. While he loved being Korean, he was fascinated by cultures other than his own and especially enjoyed commingling them. To this day, I can't picture a bucket of KFC extra-crispy without adjacent bowls of white rice and kimchi kimchi. My father's stacks of j.a.panese novels were piled right alongside Westerns by Louis L'Amour, and he listened to instructional language tapes on Spanish and Mandarin in his spare time. He often serenaded us on road trips with his rendition of "Tears on My Pillow," a number he'd learned from the soundtrack of Grease Grease. Once, I watched him eat a bowl of white rice with ketchup, straight up. Another time, he used chopsticks to pluck Vienna sausages out of their tin. He was so pleased with his concoctions, so original in his wackiness, that I believe I inherited my own willingness to improvise from him.

My mother, by contrast, was never comfortable in the States. She struggled to pick up English and didn't make many friends outside her Korean church. A short woman with permed black hair, large brown eyes, and caramel-colored skin, darker than that of most Korean women I knew, she watched a lot of Korean soap operas on the VCR and seemed content to have a vicarious American experience through her children.

Little Korean boys do not take formal cooking lessons from their mothers; the kitchen is considered a woman's domain. Nonetheless, I made excuses to spend time with her there. Cooking Korean dishes means a lot of sauteing, boiling, grilling, and frying. She rarely baked. I considered my mother a great cook, although she always told me she was only so-so, modestly claiming there were other women at church who possessed skills far superior to her own.

I don't recall that we did a lot of talking while I watched her cook. She did not share with me the latest in church gossip, nor did she try to impart wisdom in the form of hackneyed a.n.a.logies about food and life. Such things are better left for movies involving white people and karate. Instead, I recall marveling at the way she so deftly used a paring knife to peel fruit, her thumb applying pressure until the skin unfurled in a continuous ribbon. She had good hands for peeling, with strong fingers, neither long nor stubby. I watched her make simple dishes that, later on, when my parents both went to work, became my latchkey-kid staples.

There was one American experience my entire family did enjoy: eating steamed crabs at the Redondo Beach Pier. The dining experience was far from formal. We'd place our order, lay several pages of the Los Angeles Times Los Angeles Times atop one of the many communal tables, and wait for the crabs to steam. I remember how excited I was to buy lemons (for cleaning our hands afterward) and rent crab mallets. I'd crack my crab with authority, as though I were a judge lowering a gavel. Using my hands to eat, I tried my best to avoid touching the mustard-colored crab guts. Afterward, I played Skee-Ball until I drained my parents of ones and fives. As a family, we walked off our meals along the beach, sometimes until the sun set. My parents seemed so contented there. My mother was at ease at the beach, less concerned about fitting in, and she laughed a lot. atop one of the many communal tables, and wait for the crabs to steam. I remember how excited I was to buy lemons (for cleaning our hands afterward) and rent crab mallets. I'd crack my crab with authority, as though I were a judge lowering a gavel. Using my hands to eat, I tried my best to avoid touching the mustard-colored crab guts. Afterward, I played Skee-Ball until I drained my parents of ones and fives. As a family, we walked off our meals along the beach, sometimes until the sun set. My parents seemed so contented there. My mother was at ease at the beach, less concerned about fitting in, and she laughed a lot.

For a few years after my parents' deaths, I lived in a weird fog, unable to focus on my future or reconcile my past. I lost interest in all things Korean, including food. When my mother was alive, she would ask me questions in Korean and I would respond in English. After she was gone, my grip on the language loosened.

I began to work summers as a cook at an artists' colony cafe in a resort town in the Rocky Mountains. There, under the best of all possible circ.u.mstances-cooking for, and being inspired by, the master printmakers, woodworkers, painters, and ceramic artists who came through the colony-I learned to make creme brulee, venison stroganoff, and other European dishes. In that nurturing atmosphere, as my confidence in cooking grew, so did my expressiveness through food. (Within limits, of course: my idea for a "healthful" sugar cookie made with lemon Ricola cough drops never made it onto diners' plates.) But something even more unexpected occurred: latent Korean influences began to insinuate themselves into the food I prepared. I fried rectangles of tofu in vegetable oil. I tenderized flank steak in garlicky kalbi kalbi marinades. I slipped scallions into whatever dishes I could. Sesame oil found its way into my sauces. marinades. I slipped scallions into whatever dishes I could. Sesame oil found its way into my sauces.

I can't say that I channeled my parents by cooking Korean food, or that food reinvigorated my innate sense of Korean-ness. I'm not at all certain about the synapses that get fired when human beings experience emotions from cooking and eating the foods of their childhoods. All I can say for sure is that something sublime happened in that mecca of Korean cuisine-the Rockies-where I rediscovered my native food heritage. My mother left behind no recipe cards. Instead, I created dishes based on my recollections of watching her cook, imagining her in that cafe kitchen with me, telling me to add a few more red-pepper flakes or dial down the sesame oil.

I still harbor mixed feelings about my parents' move to the United States. Would they still be alive today if we had stayed in Korea? It is, of course, a fool's errand to speculate about something like that. What I do know is that, because of their sacrifice, I have had terrific experiences and opportunities, and that our son, Charlie, will inevitably have the same. One day, if he so chooses, he may even become a corporate CEO-a Fortune 500 one at that. Or a professional baseball player, if I have any say in the matter.

As I write this, Charlie is just three months old. He has my mother's skin tone and big eyes, but otherwise no physical features that specifically remind me of either of my parents. He has my faint black eyebrows and Amy's broad smile. And because he does not cry when I play songs-well, not as much as usual, anyway-I've come to believe that Charlie likes music, especially party music, as much I do. Just last week, he and I danced in our living room to the Commodores' "Brick House."

Meanwhile, food remains a primary conduit through which I hope to instill in him the lessons of one half of his ethnic roots. I'm sad that my parents aren't around to help indoctrinate him into their culture. Even though it might be naive to think that by teaching him to eat and cook Korean he'll also learn about who they were, my gut tells me this is so.

Amy and I live near a Korean supermarket that sells a lot of foods from my youth: perfectly circular s.h.i.+ngo pears, each one cradled in its own Styrofoam nest, and too-sweet candies made from sweet bean, jelly, and agar-agar. I think how cool it will be to have these foods at Charlie's first birthday party. For that celebration I can imagine cooking dishes that capitalize on my knowledge of Korean and non-Korean cuisines. I will saute fiddleheads with leeks and reserve the leek fronds for garnish. I will make pot-stickers, doing my best, just as my mother did, to get that even seal on the wrappers, which is so critical to keeping the ground pork and vegetable filling moist. I will put creative spins on Korean cla.s.sics. I will wrap bibimbap bibimbap ingredients-sliced beef, spinach, carrot slivers, bean sprouts, fried egg, rice-in ingredients-sliced beef, spinach, carrot slivers, bean sprouts, fried egg, rice-in nori nori straightjackets, drizzle them with wasabi aioli, and present these oversized, funnel-shaped hand rolls in metal Belgian straightjackets, drizzle them with wasabi aioli, and present these oversized, funnel-shaped hand rolls in metal Belgian frites frites stands. For dessert, I will experiment by baking sweet red beans stands. For dessert, I will experiment by baking sweet red beans en croute en croute.

Of course, I am getting ahead of myself. At the moment, Charlie's diet is limited to two options-fresh breast milk, or thawed-and-warmed breast milk.

Another way Charlie will learn is through language. At the peak of one of his nighttime crying fits last week, I found myself soothing him with calming words-"It's okay, it's okay"-but in Korean, the way my mother might have. Amy is learning the language, too. She has taken cla.s.ses in Korean through an adult-education center. In fact, she can read and write Korean far better than I can. I intend to join her in these cla.s.ses, or at least sit in front of a laptop with Charlie and complete our Rosetta Stone exercises together. I mean, who wouldn't benefit from learning the Korean word for elephant (koo-kee-ree)? Perhaps this way I will register even farther east on the Korea-meter.

Recently, we had a family dinner at a Korean restaurant in Cambridge. It was a more formal, or, at any rate, more urbane place than the one where I had made my ordering mistake. The host put us in a private room where we had to take our shoes off. During dinner, as Amy nursed Charlie beneath a cotton shawl, I dissected the ingredients in the banchan banchan I ate, the proper method of constructing our I ate, the proper method of constructing our ssam ssam (lettuce wraps), using rice and meat and red kochujang paste. I p.r.o.nounced aloud the Korean names of as many dishes as I could. And this time I remembered most of them accurately. (lettuce wraps), using rice and meat and red kochujang paste. I p.r.o.nounced aloud the Korean names of as many dishes as I could. And this time I remembered most of them accurately.

Amy fears that our son won't get a sufficient dose of Korean culture. It's a familiar refrain. But I will make sure to offer Charlie Korean food and, as my parents did with me, exercise patience if he doesn't want any. We will stick to one fridge in our house.

G.o.d LOVES YOU AND YOU CAN'T DO A THING ABOUT IT By Kim Severson From Spoon Fed: How Eight Cooks Saved My Life Spoon Fed: How Eight Cooks Saved My Life

As New York Times New York Times food reporter Severson traces her career (so far) in this revealing memoir, the chapters are strung-like a connect-the-dots puzzle-along encounters with eight different cooks, each of whom taught her a different life lesson. food reporter Severson traces her career (so far) in this revealing memoir, the chapters are strung-like a connect-the-dots puzzle-along encounters with eight different cooks, each of whom taught her a different life lesson.

The first time I stood in front of Dooky Chase, it was still slimy with flood water and looked for all the world like another bowl of gumbo would never come from its kitchen.

A day earlier, I'd found one of the last seats on a plane full of volunteers and evacuated flood victims heading from New York to Louisiana. It had been three weeks since Katrina, and no one except rescue workers, soldiers and a handful of reporters were allowed inside the city limits. My friend Pableaux Johnson, who calls himself "your Cajun grandma with a beard," told me he would borrow a truck and help me work my way into the city. He was born and raised in Louisiana. He's also a good, enthusiastic cook and a food writer who is always up for an adventure. But mostly, Pableaux is a lover of his people. And his people, especially right after the storm, expanded almost daily to include those of us who fell into his...o...b..t.

When Katrina hit, he had been living in a rambling apartment in Uptown, one of the few slivers of New Orleans proper that stayed dry. He evacuated to St. Martinville, a little town that sits nearly in the center of Louisiana Cajun country on Bayou Teche. Pableaux owns a small wooden church there. He converted it into a house and put in a big kitchen where the altar used to be. A couple of months before the hurricanes of 2005, Pableaux published Eating New Orleans Eating New Orleans, an intensely detailed guide on how to work your way through the city's tables.

"Basically, I wrote the guidebook for eating in Atlantis," he told me as we climbed into his truck.

The city had been closed since the levees failed, and Pableaux had been scrambling to take care of his own big, extended family and all the hurricane refugees who ended up at his church. But he was aching to check on his New Orleans apartment and his friends' places, so when I told him I was heading down to cover the culinary aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, he offered to be my Sacagawea. We headed out from the church just a little past three A.M., hoping to make the drive in a couple of hours and get to work before it got light.

We came up on New Orleans from the backside, slipping into a city that was closed along a road we could barely find in the dark. As we crept along, the headlights. .h.i.t a young man with his hand up. We slowed to a stop. He stepped over broken tree branches and walked toward the pickup. For a split second, he looked like a teenager lost in the dark of a New Orleans night, except he was holding a rifle. When he got close enough, I made out his National Guard uniform. His unit was one of dozens that set up checkpoints around the city. His job was to keep people out until it was safe. I handed over my Times Times identification card and a letter from my newspaper that stated I was there on bona fide news-reporting business. He waved us on, and Pableaux drove into the dark city, navigating around abandoned buses and fallen trees and trying not to hit the stray, hungry dogs that roamed the street. identification card and a letter from my newspaper that stated I was there on bona fide news-reporting business. He waved us on, and Pableaux drove into the dark city, navigating around abandoned buses and fallen trees and trying not to hit the stray, hungry dogs that roamed the street.

We spent the morning checking on his friends' homes and his own apartment. Every house we saw had fresh spray-painted circles bisected with Xs. In each quadrant, there was a number or a letter. One indicated the date the house was searched, another the organization that did the search, and yet another the number of bodies found inside. Animal rescuers had roamed the city with cans of paint, too. They were much less discreet, sometimes covering a good portion of the front of a house with entirely unhelpful messages like, "Cute brown dog found here. Was hungry." In the weeks after the city reopened, pet owners were left to puzzle out where their animals ended up with only those cryptic notes for clues.

The flooded, empty city had been baking for almost three weeks in 90-degree heat. Each time we got out of the truck, a stench would hit us so hard we pulled our T-s.h.i.+rts up over our noses. It was the airborne muck from maggoty food and leathery patches of mud and algae mixed with gasoline and an untraceable stink that was not unlike a rotting sneaker filled with epoisses. After a day or two saturated with that smell, you had to throw out your boots and clothes.

We got to Mrs. Chase's restaurant by mid-morning. The streets were so quiet it made us jumpy. About five feet up from the wall, a water line circled the building like a sad halo. It was deep green at the top and faded to brown closer to the sidewalk, marking the water level as the floodwater slowly receded from the neighborhood. The mix of seawater and wind had stripped the leaves from trees and sucked the green from the gra.s.s, so everything looked like a black-and-white movie. A rusting fryer basket was on its side just near the front door. Not too far away a paperback copy of the Dooky Chase cookbook, its pages swollen open and splattered with mud, lay on the sidewalk.

When the storm came, Mrs. Chase had a freezer full of gumbo and crab, the same way she had forty years earlier, when Hurricane Betsy killed eighty-one people and injured more than 17,000. Back then, with no electricity, she knew it would all go bad. But she still had gas, so she cooked up everything she had and worked with the police so she could deliver her food to people stranded in their homes. Hurricane Katrina was different. Water breached the levees and flooded her restaurant before she could blink an eye.

As we stood in front of Dooky Chase, the smell from the rotting food in her walk-in coolers mixed with the swampy, stenchy floodwater that still pooled here and there. Little flies hovered around the restaurant, swarming out of gra.s.s so gray and dry it crunched when you stepped on it. Someone had broken in and made off with the liquor and the cash register, but her precious collection of African American art had been spared, hung too high on the walls for the water to get to it and not immediately important to people looking for food, booze or cash.

"d.a.m.n," Pableaux kept saying. "d.a.m.n."