Slow-Cooker Pad Thai

The year draws toward its close. Week 156, the end of my third full year since starting the cooking. Four years of Korean food, Korean language, Korean identity. The numbers accumulate: approximately 150 Korean dishes mastered. Korean language proficiency: intermediate-high, approaching advanced. Korean community: the adoptee meetup (monthly), the women's group (monthly), the cooking classes (occasional), Sujin (weekly), Daniel (weekly), the whole ecosystem of Korean-American life in Seattle that I've built from scratch. Korean boyfriend: James, six months, still making soup, still in love. Korean birth mother search: ongoing, no match, the practice continuing.

I cooked the anniversary meal. This year: not just kimchi jjigae (though kimchi jjigae is always there, the constant, the north star of my cooking life) but also James's beef noodle soup. Two signature dishes. Korean and Taiwanese. Mine and his. The anniversary meal for two, served on the low table, eaten with metal chopsticks, the onggi pots behind us, the Korean grandmother's knife on the counter, and a Taiwanese man across from me who looks at the food and sees me, who eats the jjigae and tastes love, who said "I love you" after a bowl of soybean paste stew and meant it in the cellular way, the below-language way, the way that food means things that words can't reach.

After dinner, James said, "Move in with me." Not impulsively — deliberately, with the considered tone of a product manager who has evaluated the options and arrived at a recommendation. He said, "Your apartment is too small for two people. My apartment is too far from the things you love. Let's find a place that's ours." Ours. The word hit me in the chest. Ours implies a shared future, a shared kitchen, a shared table. Ours implies the Korean-Taiwanese kitchen treaty formalized into a domestic agreement. Ours implies — everything.

I said, "Let me think about it." Not because I don't want to — I want to, the wanting is immediate and certain and below language — but because the thinking is necessary for a person who has spent twenty-six years learning that homes can be lost, that families can be severed, that the people who are supposed to stay don't always stay. James will stay. I know this. But the knowing and the trusting are different muscles, and the trusting muscle needs a few reps before it can lift this weight. Dr. Yoon will have things to say. Karen will have things to say. My own gut will have things to say. The saying will take a week, maybe two. The answer will be yes. But the yes needs to be earned, not given. The yes needs to come from the solid floor, the three-year-old identity, the woman who made kimchi from scratch and went to Korea and taught her mother and fell in love and is now being asked to share a home with a man who makes noodles by hand and loves her in the cellular way.

Saturday: Bellevue. I told Karen about the moving-in question. She said, "Oh, Steph." Two words that contained a whole mother's emotional universe: happiness, fear, pride, loss (her baby, her Korean cooking companion, her Saturday dinner partner, growing up and moving in with a man). Then she said, "Do you love him?" I said, "Yes." She said, "Then do it. Build a kitchen together." Build a kitchen together. The most Karen advice possible. Not "build a life" — build a kitchen. Because Karen knows that for me, the kitchen is the life. The kitchen is where I became Korean. The kitchen is where I fell in love. The kitchen is where the identity lives, and the identity needs a bigger kitchen now, a shared kitchen, a Korean-Taiwanese kitchen that belongs to both of us. Build a kitchen together. I will. We will. Year five begins.

James makes noodles by hand. That’s been true since month one, and it’s one of the things I love in the cellular way—the patience of it, the intention. After our anniversary dinner, after the word “ours” landed in my chest and didn’t leave, I found myself thinking about noodles differently: not just as his signature or mine, but as something we could make together in whatever kitchen becomes ours. This slow-cooker Pad Thai isn’t kimchi jjigae and it isn’t beef noodle soup, but it sits somewhere in the spirit of both—a long, slow build, a tangle of things that belong together, warm enough to eat on a low table with metal chopsticks while you figure out the next year of your life.

Prep Time: 20 min | Cook Time: 3 hrs | Total Time: 3 hrs 20 min | Servings: 4

Ingredients

8 oz rice noodles (pad thai style, flat)
1 lb boneless, skinless chicken breasts, thinly sliced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 cup soy sauce
3 tablespoons fish sauce
2 tablespoons lime juice (about 1 lime)
2 tablespoons brown sugar
2 tablespoons rice vinegar
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 cup chicken broth
1/4 cup natural peanut butter
3 green onions, sliced
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup bean sprouts
1/3 cup dry-roasted peanuts, roughly chopped
Fresh cilantro and lime wedges, for serving

Instructions

Build the sauce. In the insert of a 4- to 6-quart slow cooker, whisk together soy sauce, fish sauce, lime juice, brown sugar, rice vinegar, sesame oil, red pepper flakes, chicken broth, and peanut butter until the peanut butter is fully incorporated and the sauce is smooth.
Add the chicken. Stir in the sliced chicken and minced garlic, making sure the pieces are coated in the sauce. Cover and cook on LOW for 2 1/2 to 3 hours, until chicken is cooked through and very tender.
Soak the noodles. About 20 minutes before serving, place dry rice noodles in a large bowl and cover with hot (not boiling) water. Let soak 15 to 18 minutes until pliable but still slightly firm. Drain and set aside.
Finish with eggs. Push the chicken to the sides of the slow cooker. Pour the beaten eggs into the center of the cooker and stir quickly, letting them cook in the residual heat for 1 to 2 minutes until just set, then fold into the sauce.
Combine and serve. Add the drained noodles and green onions to the slow cooker and toss to coat evenly. Divide among bowls and top with bean sprouts, chopped peanuts, fresh cilantro, and a squeeze of lime.

Nutrition (per serving)

Slow-Cooker Pad Thai — A Shared Kitchen, a Shared Table