김치.

Kimchi - it's what Koreans are made of.

There are many different types of kimchi: bae-chu kimchi (napa cabbage), o-ee so bae gee (cucumber), kkak doo gee (radish/ daikon), and the list goes on. This week, I learned to make bu-chu kimchi (chives) and dong chi mi (radish in water). According to my mom, these two are the easiest to make; minimal discretion involved as far as salting and seasoning are concerned. As much as my mom tries to instill an independent spirit in me, she tries to hand her recipes down to me whenever she has the chance. I think she wants to believe that I will feed my own family homemade kimchi rather than one of the many packaged ones at the Korean markets. Whilst maintaining a full-time professional career, of course.

Washing the chives...

The finished product:
Waiting for the salt to settle in...

The finished product:
And now we wait for it to ferment into smelly, pungent, potent goodness...

Fancy pants.

My mom and her 3 sisters are culinary masters, but with different specialties. I'm obviously biased towards my mom's cooking, which is hard to categorize as she likes to color outside of the lines and concoct her own creations. My 1st aunt is the master of Korean traditional dishes, like various sorts of na-mul (seasonal vegetable side dishes) and dduk mandoo gook (rice cake and dumpling soup); hence, we always have New Year's breakfast at her house. My 2nd aunt is the master of American comfort foods - she lived a long time in Middle America. Her meatloaf, spaghetti sauce and prime rib are all-time popular requests. Christmas dinner is always at her house. My 3rd aunt is my Food Network soul mate. We love the same chefs and swap favorite recipes. She is a master baker: German chocolate cake and banana black walnut loaf, which I intend to make as soon as I get back. She also makes an amazing roasted turkey and an equally amazing roasted veggies. As you may have already guessed, Thanksgiving is always at her place. She, however, has a severe aversion to cilantro and mangoes; that's where we part ways. But for tonight, we decided to join forces to create our fancy pants dinner.

Sliced baguette with honey-butter.

Au gratin potatoes.

Roasted sweet white corn.

Grilled rib-eye steaks, courtesy of my uncle - master of the grill.

Warm spinach salad with a citrus vinaigrette. (My contribution.)

Strawberries with cottage cheese and honey for dessert.

I have read Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club at least a dozen times. I loved it so much that I went on to read all of Tan's other novels, but none of them would move me as much as The Joy Luck Club did. The novel centers around 4 friends who put aside their sorrows and sufferings momentarily to gather around a redwood table and play mahjong while feasting on delicious delicacies. My mom, 2 of my aunts and my uncle hold their very own version of the Joy Luck Club every week. Using my grandpa's old mahjong set, they play for quarters. Once they've collected enough, they use it to pay for a fancy pants meal. This week's fancy pants meal was in honor of my brother and myself as our visit came to a close.

"Each week we could forget past wrongs done to us. We weren't allowed to think a bad thought. We feasted, we laughed, we played games, lost and won, we told the best stories. And each week, we could hope to be lucky. That hope was our only joy. And that's how we came to call our little parties Joy Luck."