By Jisoo left on Monday. The departure was — I am going to use a word that is inadequate — difficult. Fourteen days in my house. Fourteen days of cooking together, of waking to rice, of holding Hana, of standing side by side at the Bluestar, of the ordinary miracles that happen when a mother is in your kitchen. And then the suitcase by the door and the drive to the airport and the gate and the hug and the letting go.
She held me at the gate. She said, "I will come back." I said, "I know." She said, "The kitchen will remember me." I said, "The kitchen will remember you. I will remember you. Hana will remember you." She looked at Hana — seventeen months old, walking, talking, holding her wooden spoon. She said, "Hana. Halmoni is going home now. Halmoni will come back." Hana said, "Halmoni." She reached for Jisoo. Jisoo held her one more time. She kissed her hair. She put her down. She walked through the gate. She did not look back. She walked through the gate the way she walks through everything: upright, forward, sure. She is the bravest person I know. She gave me away at seventeen. She found me at fifty-two. She flew to America at seventy-six. She walked through a departure gate without looking back because looking back would have broken her and Jisoo does not break. Jisoo bends. Jisoo holds. Jisoo continues.
The kitchen is quiet without her. The onggi pots hold her kimchi. The counters remember her hands. The stove remembers her stew. I stood in the kitchen on Tuesday morning and I could smell her — the faint residue of sesame oil and doenjang and the particular warmth of a mother who has been cooking in your kitchen. The smell faded by Wednesday. The memory will not.
The recipe this week is Jisoo's kimchi — the batch she made in my kitchen, in my onggi, with my gochugaru and her hands. I am not going to give you the recipe. The recipe is Jisoo's. The recipe is in her hands. The hands were here. The hands are gone. The kimchi remains. I will eat it slowly, over the next month, one spoonful at a time, and each spoonful will taste like the two weeks my mother was in my kitchen and the kitchen was full and the thread was visible and the thread held.
I said I wouldn’t give you the kimchi recipe — and I meant it. That one belongs to Jisoo’s hands, and her hands are in Seoul. But the kitchen still needs to feed you, and on Wednesday evening, when the sesame oil smell had faded and Hana was asleep and the house was just a house again, I opened a cabinet and made the dumbest, easiest, most unapologetically comforting thing I know how to make: chocolate dump cake. No technique. No standing at the stove. You dump, you wait, you eat. Sometimes that’s exactly the right recipe for the day you’re having.
Chocolate Dump Cake
Prep Time: 5 minutes | Cook Time: 45 minutes | Total Time: 50 minutes | Servings: 12
Ingredients
- 1 can (21 oz) cherry pie filling
- 1 can (20 oz) crushed pineapple, undrained
- 1 box (15.25 oz) chocolate cake mix, dry
- 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, thinly sliced
- 1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
- Vanilla ice cream or whipped cream, for serving (optional)
Instructions
- Preheat. Heat your oven to 350°F. Lightly grease a 9x13-inch baking dish.
- Layer the fruit. Spread the cherry pie filling evenly across the bottom of the dish. Spoon the crushed pineapple (with all its juice) over the cherries and spread into an even layer.
- Add the cake mix. Pour the dry chocolate cake mix straight from the box over the fruit layer. Spread it evenly with a spoon — do not stir.
- Top with butter. Arrange the butter slices in a single layer across the top of the dry cake mix, covering as much surface as possible. Scatter the chocolate chips over everything.
- Bake. Bake uncovered for 40–45 minutes, until the top is set, the butter has melted through, and the edges are bubbling. The center should look moist but not liquid.
- Rest and serve. Let the cake rest for 10 minutes before scooping. Serve warm, directly from the dish, with ice cream or whipped cream if you want it.
Nutrition (per serving)
Calories: 340 | Protein: 3g | Fat: 15g | Carbs: 52g | Fiber: 1g | Sodium: 370mg