An Ode to Mom Cooked Meals

So I think all my b-school application sludgery is done for the foreseeable future, so I should finally be able to put forth a consistent blogging effort (hopefully…).

My trip home is already fading into the black hole that is my long-term memory, but if there’s one thing that will never, ever fade away, it’s the taste of my mom’s home cooking.

My mom loves to cook.  Growing up in Wisconsin as a fairly sheltered suburban kid with limited social freedoms, I would say that 97% of all dinners possible were at home, and that of those dinners, 100% were cooked by my mom (although there was the occasional day of leftovers).  For the sake of full disclosure, I will admit that there was a period of 2 years or so where my mom was working out of state where my father and I had to fend for ourselves.  We call these “The Hungry Years.”

Now, I know everyone thinks their mother’s cooking is the bomb diggity, and that the power of perception and self-deception is powerful, but where the rest of you are prisoners of your own minds, I am rooted in objective truth.  My mom’s cooking is the bomb diggity.  One time, she told me stories of how she went to cooking hagwon (extra-curricular classes basically) and how she had a full notebook of recipes and such.  As much as I subscribe to the utility of head-knowledge though, I’m sure that what actually made all the difference was simply years of cooking day-in, day-out.  One time, because I had to catch a flight, she pan-fried a fish and made a sweet and sour sauce FROM WENDY’S SWEET AND SOUR packets…and it was delicious.  The thought that went through my head was, “This woman is a wizard!”

Some personal favorites:

• Sunday morning pancakes, made from Aunt Jemaima’s pancake mix; I still much prefer those flat syrup vessels to the syrup absorbing and disguising buttermilk pancake
• Korea curry rice, ’nuff said; still can’t get my beef as tender as her…have no idea what I’m doing wrong
• Kalbi-jjim with chestnuts; CHESTNUTS ARE SO KEY!
• Squash tempura; apparently her secret is to sprinkle with salt for a half day to draw out the moisture

So this post, dear reader, is dedicated to my mom’s cooking!  (And of course, my mom herself!)  Huzzah to you, beautiful breakfasts, luscious lunches, and delicious dinners,

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