kimchi on a stick

Yobo Adobo and I are foodies. He always has been. I was a late bloomer.

I was born in Korea, the kimchi capital of the world, but was adopted by white Midwestern Scandinavian-American farmers soon thereafter. My childhood table selection consisted mainly of red meat, white meat, poultry, mashed potatoes, fried potatoes, boiled potatoes, the obligatory frozen vegetables, Jell-O and casseroles. Seasonings included salt and … um …

Hmm. Well, I guess just salt.

Every so often, we’d go out to eat for Mexican or Chinese, but if you’ve ever passed through my rural Midwestern community, you’d know what level of authenticity we’re dealing with. While in high school, I became violently ill after eating a chicken enchilada, and couldn’t stomach Mexican food again for several years.

Then, one spring break, I visited Mexico, where I gained a new sense of appreciation for Mexican Mexican cuisine … and I began to wonder. What else had I been missing out on those long, dark, lonely, seasoning-deprived years?

I tasted Korean food for my first time while in college, during the same meal that I lost my sushi virginity. Quite a memorable evening. I didn’t eat either again for about two or three more years after that.

After college, I moved up north to Minnesota to live in the Twin Cities — the largest metropolitan area I’d lived in. It was then that everything changed.

Adventures in food

That first summer, I was interning at a newspaper as a news editor, where my colleagues and I worked the evening shift late into the night. The full-time staff saw their interns, all of us from out of town, as the perfect excuse to get out of the newsroom every night and guide us on an epicurean tour of the cities. We ate at a different restaurant each night. And on the nights when a staffer couldn’t accompany us interns, we would pick a new place from Citysearch or the newspaper’s restaurant guide, and strike out on our own.

We visited Ethiopian, German, Italian, Middle Eastern, Swedish, Korean, Japanese, Mexican, South American, Thai, Vietnamese, Chinese, Indian and fusion eateries that summer. British and Irish pubs, burger joints, greasy spoon diners, vegetarian bistros, breakfast cafés, pizzerias — you name it; we ate there.

Looking back, it was really one of the best ways to get to know a new city. We left few stones unturned, and by the end of the summer, I knew the Twin Cities metro area better than many residents do after living there for years of their lives.

Dietary restrictions

Around the time that I first met the Yobo, I also met lactose intolerance. *sob* If it hadn’t been for the extreme gastric distress that dairy inflicted upon my GI tract, I would have been devastated. Honestly, though, as much as I loved ice cream and cheesy pizza and cream cheese wontons and sour cream mashed potatoes and buttery, milk-rich sweets, I certainly did not love the days and days of barfness that I began to experience after eating them, once I apparently used up all of my lifetime lactase supply.

So, it was surprisingly easy for me to quit dairy. In fact, I dropped 20+ pounds in the first months after I became lactose intolerant — due to a combination, I suppose, of the yakking and the avoidance of all dietary traces of dairy.

In the years since then, unfortunately, I have found ways around the zero-tolerance dairy policy that I adhered faithfully to in those first several months of lactose rebellion. I still remain mostly dairy-free, however, save for some small, well-monitored indulgences.

Thus, most, if not all, of the foods and recipes that I share here are and shall be dairy-free, or including some dairy alternative.

Now the Yobo, although also lactose intolerant to some degree, considers cheese one of his primary human rights. So often, recipes that I make will be split it two — half with dairy, half without — or else otherwise cleverly tweaked to accommodate both of our diets.

Oy, and then there’s the sugars. Yobo Adobo has type 2 diabetes, and in 2002 I learned that I have a first-degree biological family member who also has type 2 diabetes, so I, too, must take extra care with my diet where carbohydrate content is concerned.

Thus, many, though not all, of the foods and recipes that I share here are and shall be sugar-free, sugar-reduced, or somehow sugar-healthy — meaning using no sugar, using sugar alternatives, or incorporating healthy carbs in yummy ways.

Healthy food doesn’t have to taste like sand!

Yobo A. used to hate vegetables and would avoid eating them unless they were drowned in melted cheese. Given that I spent my formative years devising new and creative ways to hide canned peas and frozen lima beans and those horrid mixed veggies that no kids (and very few adults) like in my napkin or lap or milk, it’s a wonder that both of us these days are veggie fans. It just took a lot of experimentation and trips to the produce section, farmers’ markets and Chinatown markets to find out that vegetables are yummy. No, really.

Recently, especially after the holidays, both of us have hit a wall when it comes to the extra pounds we’ve both been accumulating around our midsections for the past several years. And then, with the advent of some new health concerns that have arisen for both of us, I have taken a greater interest lately in cooking and eating more healthfully.

Putting 2+2 together

Health and wellness have always been interests of mine, ever since I started out my college career studying & working in the health care field (but then wound up with a journalism degree). After interning as a newspaper editor, I worked as a writer & editor of consumer health information, where I actually got to put both parts of my educational background to use in tandem.

So for several years, I practically ate, slept and breathed health, health, health. Nonetheless, my own resolve and willpower always sucked, sucked, sucked. Duh. I should know better. Out of my six parents (two Korean, two American and two in-laws), three have diabetes, four have been heavy smokers and two three have had cancer. One died from the smoking and the cancer. Hello? Wake-up call, anyone? Both the Yobo and I are also ex-smokers — me, having been (mostly) smoke-free for almost 10 years, and the Yobo, for 5.

Yet it’s only been in the past year or two, after being faced with some of my own health issues, and facing up to the facts that the Yobo & I not getting any younger and our health concerns aren’t going to disappear on their own, that I’ve truly gotten serious.

Anyway, that’s my story.

I love eating. I’m never going to stop. But at least I can figure out ways to keep eating without killing myself. I’m fine with taking some extra time in the kitchen to get things right, so I can’t promise that all of these recipes will be particularly fast. But I’m no slave to the stove either, so none of them will be particularly complex, to the point of requiring professional appliances or extra appendages or sous-chefs or Valium.

Try them, you’ll like them!