Kimchee, Like A-1, Goes with Everything

Did I not just question my own ethnic identity, concluding that aside from the obvious superficial factors like, oh, I don’t know, my indisputably Asian appearance despite cosmetic dehancement, and the 10-year-old Toyota Camry parked in my garage, all other signs point decidedly to…three months of therapy?

Apparently, I blogged too soon, because we will soon prove that I am, beyond a shadow of a doubt, Korean. At the very least, my immediate family is, but be not ye fooled nor mistaken. Unfortunately, I am not an orphaned Midwest genius who was adopted out of the kindness of my surrogate Korean mother’s heart in some reverse white Jolie-Pitt/Asian Maddox adoption. “Delicious” is not a typical Korean family name, but I changed my name to protect the innocent from shame by association, and when it comes down to evidence of race, religion, ethnicity or sexual asianation (some yellow folks are offended by "orient"), it has nothing to do with my birth certificate.

It has everything to do with food.

I went home to have lunch with the family, a sort of casual baby shower get-together for my sister, because nothing coos “baby shower” for a perfectly pink baby girl more than a backyard BBQ and watching golf!

Naturally, you would think that a Korean family would grill galbee, bulgogi, and perhaps a little fire and spice dae-jee bulgogi if you want to really show some serious arirang pride, but we did not. We grilled and ate steaks. No, they weren't the German hamburger steak, neither the Japanese hamburg steak nor the so-backcountry-it-might-as-well-be-another-country country fried steak.

We slapped good ol' all-American steak onto our good ol' all-American Weber.

"All-American?"

Preej.

The steak by itself was just about the only "American" thing about our lunch BBQ. Well, the steak and black olives in the green salad because I'm pretty sure black olives are not indigenous to the Land of Morning Calm. Every place at the two tables now required for our ever-growing family was set with a steak knife and...chopsticks. There was a full array of the usual Delicious family favorite bahn-chan on the counter, jji-gae gurgling away on a hotplate on the patio because the fragrance of fermented soybean paste in the house is too much for Dad's hypersensitive nose, and rice (though it wasn't fried rice).

And no, I don't think A1 ever made it to the plate, mine or anyone else's. While it kills my Delicious soul to see someone violate the virgin purity of a piece of meat with some sleaze like A1, or any sauce for that matter, I took unholy joy in smothering every single bloody bite of my steak with Hot Cock and suffocating it with a flap of fermented cabbage. I couldn't have it any other way.

Kimchee with everything, my brother from another mother, is irrefutable evidence that I am, and always have been, 100% pure-rice Korean.

** a year ago today, coldstone vs. diddy riese was mortal (frozen) kombat **
** two years ago today, i got all paula deen on southern fried eggs benny and ate korean food after doing a dr. 90210 to my face **

tags :: food : and drink : american : korean : cooking : reviews : los angeles