Mushroom Lovers Pasta

The video call with Jisoo was Friday, September 10. I am still processing it and will be for years. I will try to write what I can.

I set up at the kitchen table. Good webcam, good light. James made tea and stayed out of frame in the bedroom with headphones on. He was available if I needed him and invisible if I didn't. I wore the sweater. The one I had picked out. The ring on my left hand. The hair pulled back.

At 6:00 PM Pacific, the Zoom link popped open. Hye-jin the translator appeared first. She smiled. She said, "Are you ready?" I said yes. She said, "I will bring her in."

And then there was Jisoo. On my laptop. In a small kitchen in Busan. Her hair white at the temples. Her face older than in any photo I had seen. Her hands folded in her lap the way they had been folded in the photo from 1986. She looked at me. I looked at her. Neither of us spoke for what Hye-jin later told me was fourteen seconds. Then Jisoo said, in Korean, "Stephanie-ah. Uri ddal." Hye-jin translated: "Stephanie. My daughter." Jisoo put her hands over her face and wept. I put my hands over my face and wept. Hye-jin was silent. We cried together, across an ocean, for what was probably two minutes and felt like a lifetime.

When we could speak, we spoke. Hye-jin translated both ways in near real-time. Jisoo told me about the day she gave me up — the hospital room, the one hour she held me, the way she smelled me and memorized my face before they took me, the note she had wanted to leave with me but was not allowed to leave. She told me she had named me, in her head, Dahee — though she had never spoken the name aloud. She had held onto it for twenty-eight years. I said, "Dahee." She said, "Yes." I said, "I have two names now. Stephanie and Dahee." She said, "Keep both."

I told her about my childhood. The good parts. The hard parts. The way I had looked for her without knowing I was looking. The way I had found her through food before I found her through the database. She cried more. She said, "The food is the blood. The food is the memory. You were always my daughter, even when you were hers." She was not being cruel. She was being true. Karen and Jisoo are not in competition. They are both my mother. I said this to Jisoo. Jisoo said, "Yes. Tell Karen I thank her."

We talked for ninety minutes. I asked about her life. Her marriage, her children, her work (she is a retired office administrator; she keeps books for a neighborhood clinic part-time now), her faith (she is Catholic), her garden (small, herbs, some tomatoes). She asked about my life. James, who had been invisible, was invited in at minute seventy. Jisoo smiled and said, "Hello, James." He said, "Hello, umma. I'm glad to meet you." He called her umma without hesitation. I cried again. Jisoo said to James, through Hye-jin, "Take care of my daughter." James said, "I will."

At the end, Jisoo said, "When can we meet in person?" I said, "Next year. As soon as I can." She said, "I will be here." I said, "I know. I know you will."

After we hung up I went to bed at 7:45 PM. I slept until 8 AM Saturday. James watched me sleep, he said, and made sure I was breathing. He is a good husband already and he is not a husband yet.

The recipe this week is miyeokguk — seaweed soup, the birthday soup — made Friday morning before the call. I ate it Saturday morning. It was like being held.

I did not cook on Friday night. I slept. But Saturday morning, still hollowed out and somehow full at the same time, I needed to make something with my hands—something earthy and warm that asked nothing of me except that I stir it. Jisoo had told me the food is the blood, the food is the memory, and I have been thinking about that ever since: how nourishment travels across generations even when nothing else can. This mushroom pasta is what I made. It is not miyeokguk. It is not Korean. But it is the thing my hands knew how to reach for, and it held me the way I needed to be held.

Prep Time: 10 min | Cook Time: 25 min | Total Time: 35 min | Servings: 4

Ingredients

12 oz pasta (pappardelle, tagliatelle, or fettuccine)
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, divided
1 lb mixed mushrooms (cremini, shiitake, oyster), sliced
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 medium shallot, finely diced
1/2 cup dry white wine
3/4 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup pasta cooking water, reserved
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese, plus more to serve
1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves (or 1/2 teaspoon dried)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Fresh parsley, chopped, to finish

Instructions

Cook the pasta. Bring a large pot of well-salted water to a boil. Cook pasta according to package directions until al dente. Before draining, reserve 1/2 cup of the starchy cooking water. Drain and set aside.
Sear the mushrooms. Heat olive oil and 1 tablespoon of butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add mushrooms in a single layer (work in batches if needed) and do not stir for 2–3 minutes, allowing them to brown. Season with salt and pepper, then toss and cook another 2 minutes until deeply golden. Transfer to a plate.
Build the sauce. Reduce heat to medium. Add remaining tablespoon of butter to the same skillet. Sauté shallot for 2 minutes until soft, then add garlic and thyme and cook 1 minute more. Pour in the white wine and scrape up any browned bits. Simmer until reduced by half, about 2 minutes.
Add the cream. Pour in the heavy cream and stir to combine. Simmer gently for 3–4 minutes until slightly thickened. Return the mushrooms to the pan.
Finish with pasta. Add the drained pasta to the skillet and toss to coat. Add pasta water a splash at a time until the sauce clings to the noodles and is silky but not soupy. Remove from heat and stir in the Parmesan.
Serve. Divide into bowls. Top with extra Parmesan, fresh parsley, and a crack of black pepper. Eat somewhere quiet.

Nutrition (per serving)

Mushroom Lovers Pasta — The Bowl I Made to Hold Myself Together