By James's parents called on Sunday from San Jose ╬ôçö his mother, Mei-Ling, and his father, Robert, who goes by Bob because he has been in America for forty years and somewhere along the way Robert became Bob and nobody questioned it. Mei-Ling asked when we're getting married. James said, "Ma, we've been dating a year and a half." She said, "Your cousin Andrew dated his wife for six months." James said, "Andrew is divorced." There was a silence. Bob changed the subject to the Giants. I was in the kitchen pretending not to listen and laughing into a dish towel. Mei-Ling then asked to talk to me and told me, in her direct way, that I should make James eat more vegetables. I said I would try. I will not try. James is a grown man who eats vegetables when he wants to, which is when I hide them in things.
The gochugaru experiment yielded results. The darkest one ╬ôçö from a producer in Goechanggun, sun-dried, coarse ╬ôçö has a sweetness and a depth that the standard H Mart brand doesn't touch. I used it in a new batch of kimchi on Wednesday, and even before fermentation I could taste the difference. Richer. Rounder. Like the difference between instant coffee and the single-origin Kevin roasts in Portland. I texted Kevin a photo and he said, "You're doing to kimchi what I do to coffee. We're both insane." He's not wrong. But the insanity is the interesting part ╬ôçö the refusal to accept good enough when better is one variable away.
Dr. Yoon on Thursday circled back to the doenjang jjigae project. She asked if I'd considered reaching out to Jisoo for the recipe ╬ôçö not through the adoption agency, which is how the search was conducted, but directly, if contact information was available. I said I wasn't ready. She asked what ready would feel like. I said, "Like the soup being good enough that I'm not embarrassed." She said, "You want to be competent before you're vulnerable." Yes. That is exactly what I want. That is what I have always wanted. Dr. Yoon sees me with a clarity that is sometimes uncomfortable and always necessary.
Saturday evening James and I made his mother's zha jiang mian ╬ôçö ground pork in a thick bean sauce over wheat noodles, topped with julienned cucumber. Mei-Ling's recipe, dictated over the phone with the impatience of a woman who has never used a measuring cup. "A little of this, not too much of that, you'll know when it's right." James knew when it was right. I watched his hands and thought about transmission again ╬ôçö how some people receive their food culture like a gift, unwrapped slowly over a childhood, and some of us have to build it from salvage.
Watching James make his mother’s zha jiang mian without a single measuring cup — adding, tasting, adjusting by instinct — did something to me. I wanted to start from the most foundational place I could: the noodle itself. Not the sauce, not the toppings, just flour and egg and what your hands can figure out. These homemade egg noodles won’t pretend to be Mei-Ling’s recipe, but they’re the beginning of understanding what she was working with — and for now, that’s enough.
Egg Noodles
Prep Time: 30 min | Cook Time: 5 min | Total Time: 35 min | Servings: 4
Ingredients
- 2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 2 large eggs
- 1/4 cup water, plus more as needed
- 1 teaspoon neutral oil (vegetable or canola)
Instructions
- Make the dough. Whisk together the flour and salt in a large bowl. Make a well in the center and add the eggs, water, and oil. Mix with a fork until shaggy, then turn out onto a lightly floured surface and knead for 8–10 minutes until smooth and elastic. If the dough feels too stiff, add water one teaspoon at a time.
- Rest. Wrap the dough tightly in plastic wrap and let it rest at room temperature for 20 minutes. This relaxes the gluten and makes rolling easier.
- Roll and cut. Divide the dough into two portions. On a floured surface, roll each portion out as thin as you can — about 1/8 inch. Dust the surface generously with flour, loosely roll or fold the dough, and cut into strips 1/4 inch wide. Shake the noodles loose and dust lightly with more flour to prevent sticking.
- Cook. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Cook the noodles for 3–5 minutes until tender but still slightly chewy. Fresh noodles cook quickly; taste after 3 minutes. Drain and rinse briefly with cool water if not serving immediately.
- Serve. Toss with your sauce of choice — a thick bean sauce with ground pork and julienned cucumber, a simple sesame dressing, or just good butter and black pepper. The noodle is the point.
Nutrition (per serving)
Calories: 240 | Protein: 8g | Fat: 4g | Carbs: 42g | Fiber: 1g | Sodium: 310mg