We were finally back home in Chicago with my family for ten days, just in time for Easter. A much needed break from our vacation! At this point, I really was just dying for a good home-cooked meal. And my mom takes the word "home-cooked" very seriously. As soon as we arrived, my mom, as usual, showed me the elaborate menu that she had planned for our entire stay - roast duck, crab, drunken pork, marinated quail, there was something special every night.
But that was only the tip of the ice-berg. In the mornings, she would bring out freshly baked warm bread, and at lunch, hand-crafted won-tons, sticky rice and shredded chicken hand-wrapped in lotus leaves, and pork buns with the dough kneaded by hand. Whenever I came down stairs, there was almost always mixing bowls and baking sheets laid out on the counter-top, and my mom elbow deep in the next installment of her plan. It seemed like there was almost nothing store-bought in the house, everything was made from scratch.
Over the past year or two, it's become my desire to cook for my family and impress them with my newly acquired skills. After cooking for Marco almost every night over the past year, I have built up somewhat of a fledgling list of go-to dishes that always turn out pretty well. But no matter how much I tell my family, I still have a feeling that they think I'm eating out of a Chinese take-out box every day. The year leading up to college was filled with my dad telling me how important it is for me to learn to cook, how food is one of the greatest enjoyments in life, and how my future family will either starve or become addicted to, god forbid, fast-food food otherwise.
However, it's particularly difficult to cook for my family because my mom is such an amazing chef - and although my parents will at least be polite and always ate whatever I made during my past visits, my brother is as straight of a shooter as they make 'em. He won't even eat an entire shrimp if it's not up to Mom Standard. But this time, I had a secret recipe up my sleeve - a Korean beef short-rib stew with root vegetables and daikon that is simmered over 6 hours to perfection. I had already made it once for Marco, who ate it morning, lunch and dinner until every bit was gone. So this time, I made sure to convince mom to let me have dibs over dinner one night that week, and I gathered all the ingredients from the Korean market.
After slaving over chopping board for most of the morning dicing a small mountain of vegetables, pre-boiling, and marinating the meat, I finally set the pot over a small flame and let the simmering do its magic. By mid afternoon, aromas of the tender beef started wafting around the house. I have to say though, I was pretty surprised when my dad came downstairs to tell me that he was sure the stew was finished because it smelled toooo aromatic! And even better yet, at dinner, my brother was actually excited to eat the heaped bowl in front of him! Usually, he either pokes at the food I cook, and says it give him a stomach-ache. Even though he's usually by far the last one finished at the table, tonight he trundled fork-full after fork-full into his mouth like a bulldozer and was done and out of his chair in half the usual time. My mom couldn't even believe how fast he ate. And more importantly, he said the golden words "Even better than mom's beef stew!"
All I can say is, after the show that my mom's running, the responsibility to carry on the family tradition is no small one but... I think there's some hope for me yet!
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