Cooking Ventures

In Korea, when a woman is able to peel a pear correctly with a knife (a fruit whose origins have long been the issue of contention between China and Korea – please just call it an Asian pear -_-) she is deemed ready for marriage. At least, that’s what my mom used to tell me. Since I am a half-Korean living in America, I thought it appropriate that the American standard my own standard of a woman being ready to marry based on her ability to boil a hotdog and pan fry a grilled cheese sandwich would be just as good.

Little did I know that after getting married, I’d be moving off to the far and foreign land some call ‘New Mexico’ where not a single Asian store exists for miles. Also, little did I know the depths in which the American school system has failed in the area of geography since a ton of people still have no clue that New Mexico is a part of the U.S. (I promise I’m not making that up!) No more 5 minute drives to my favorite Korean restaurants to get my soondubu on. Here, there was no place to get the soondubu on. And in wanting to be a fantastic wife to my Chinese husband whose parents own a delicious restaurant and are amazing cooks (no pressure!! <-- sarcasm) – I decided to dive into the world of Asian cooking.

It has definitely been an adventure where earlier in our marriage pre-teen-like tantrums from moi emanated from the kitchen rivaling that of a Justin Beiber fan who just found out that concert tickets sold out and her parents wouldn’t let her go anyways because the concert was on a school night. (TMI: oral contraceptives can only be partially blamed for the escalation of crazy emotions. I like to tell Sherwin that I ‘blacked out’ and don’t remember those times I was a bit *ahem* emotional back in the day…) My cooking adventures also included spending 8 hours on a soup that is most definitely not worth spending time cooking and more worth flying back to Atlanta and ordering someone else to cook it for me.

But through these adventures, I learned some important lessons. One is that my husband is extremely loving and ridiculously patient. And second, my issues with perfection and wanting to be the perfect wife should never overshadow my desire to be the wife God has called me to be. To be a wife that loves and encourages him and sometimes make the best boiled hot dogs he’s ever had.