By Summer begins. I've settled into a rhythm that feels sustainable — the word Dr. Yoon keeps using, sustainable, as opposed to the urgent, frantic energy of year one and the transformative intensity of year two. Year three is about sustaining what I've built: the cooking practice, the language study, the therapy, the community, the ongoing search. The building is done (for now). The living-inside is what's happening.
This week I cooked what I'm calling "Korean weeknight rotation": a set of five dishes I cycle through Monday to Friday, each taking less than thirty minutes, each requiring minimal thought. Monday: kimchi jjigae (the eternal). Tuesday: doenjang jjigae. Wednesday: bulgogi with rice. Thursday: kongnamul-bap. Friday: bibimbap. The rotation is practical — I shop once on Sunday, prep banchan, and coast through the weeknights on autopilot. But the rotation is also identity: my weeknight dinner is Korean. Not some nights. Every night. The Americanness of my upbringing shows in my breakfast (still eggs and toast, still the Bellevue girl) and my snacks (still a sucker for Goldfish crackers, God help me). But dinner is Korean. Every night. The kitchen that was silent and takeout-fueled three years ago now runs on a five-day Korean rotation, and the rotation is the rhythm of my life, and the rhythm is mine.
At work, I'm in a groove — the platform is stable, the team is performing, and I've been given bandwidth to work on a research project: using machine learning to predict customer food preferences based on purchase history. The intersection of food and engineering. The most Stephanie Park project imaginable. I'm building a model that predicts what people want to eat, and the irony — that I spent three years figuring out what I wanted to eat — is not lost on me.
Korean class: I can now read a Korean newspaper article with about 70% comprehension. The remaining 30% is vocabulary I don't know — specialized terms, idioms, cultural references. But 70% is enough to get the gist, to follow the story, to understand the news in the language of the country I'm from. I read an article about Korean street food trends and understood it. I read an article about a grandmother in Jeonju who makes the best bibimbap in Korea and understood it. I'm reading Korea in Korean. The connection is no longer mediated by translation. It's direct. Imperfect but direct.
Saturday: Bellevue. Karen made her summer pasta primavera. I brought bibimbap — the dish I ate at Hodori three years ago and cried over, the dish that was the first Korean meal I ate in a restaurant, the dish that opened the door. I've made it hundreds of times since. The bibimbap at the Bellevue table was not the bibimbap from Hodori — it was better. Not technically better. Mine better. Seasoned by three years of practice, flavored by the life I've built, served in the Korean ceramic bowls I bought at Uwajimaya, eaten with the metal chopsticks I brought from Korea. The bowl held everything: the rice, the vegetables, the egg, the gochujang, and the three years of Stephanie Park becoming someone who makes bibimbap on autopilot and serves it without ceremony and eats it with the easy, automatic confidence of a Korean woman feeding her family. The ceremony is gone. The food remains. That's the end of the story. Or the middle. Probably the middle.
Every Saturday, Karen makes this pasta primavera. I’ve watched her make it a dozen times now — the way she salts the water confidently, the way she doesn’t measure anything, the easy automaticity of someone who has cooked this dish so many times it lives in her hands. It’s the dish that sits across the table from my bibimbap, and somewhere in that pairing — her summer vegetables and my gochujang-bright bowl — the whole Saturday feels like it makes sense. I asked her for the recipe. She said, “You just… throw things in.” I wrote it down anyway.
Vegan Pasta Primavera
Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 20 minutes | Total Time: 30 minutes | Servings: 4
Ingredients
- 12 oz linguine or spaghetti
- 3 tablespoons olive oil, divided
- 1 medium zucchini, halved lengthwise and sliced
- 1 medium yellow squash, halved lengthwise and sliced
- 1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved
- 1 cup asparagus, trimmed and cut into 1-inch pieces
- 1 cup frozen peas, thawed
- 4 cloves garlic, minced
- 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
- 1/3 cup fresh basil leaves, torn
- 1/4 cup fresh parsley, chopped
- Zest and juice of 1 lemon
- Salt and black pepper to taste
- Vegan parmesan or nutritional yeast, for serving (optional)
Instructions
- Cook the pasta. Bring a large pot of well-salted water to a boil. Cook pasta according to package directions until al dente. Reserve 1/2 cup pasta water before draining.
- Sauté the vegetables. While pasta cooks, heat 2 tablespoons olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add zucchini, yellow squash, and asparagus. Cook, stirring occasionally, for 5–6 minutes until just tender and lightly golden at the edges.
- Add garlic and tomatoes. Push the vegetables to one side of the pan. Add the remaining 1 tablespoon olive oil and the minced garlic to the cleared space. Cook 30 seconds until fragrant, then stir in the cherry tomatoes and red pepper flakes. Cook another 2 minutes until tomatoes begin to soften.
- Combine. Add the drained pasta and peas to the skillet. Toss everything together, adding reserved pasta water a splash at a time until the sauce lightly coats the noodles.
- Finish and season. Remove from heat. Add lemon zest, lemon juice, basil, and parsley. Toss to combine. Season generously with salt and black pepper.
- Serve. Divide among bowls and top with vegan parmesan or a dusting of nutritional yeast if desired. Serve immediately.
Nutrition (per serving)
Calories: 420 | Protein: 13g | Fat: 12g | Carbs: 67g | Fiber: 6g | Sodium: 210mg