an armful of joy. via @quizas_mari.

Good morning and happy Friday!

As you read this, I'll be on a mini-vacation. Not somewhere far, but it's somewhere other than home, and for that very fact, I've been practically buzzing with excitement after these past two years of staying home.

A big part of “going places” I'm just beginning to rebuild my muscles for is the getting dressed part. I have no idea what to wear to a fancy dinner. No clue what a cute “exploring the city” look is anymore. Do I have to burn all my skinny jeans now? Where can a girl find sensible, mid-heeled sandals that are dressy enough but also comfortable? (To wear high heels again, I'm going to need the equivalent of a couch-to-5k program. Crocs-to-high-heels? Idk.) I open my closet, and matching sweatsuits come tumbling out.

Due to this excitement and anxiety of getting dressed again, I have a bevy of bookmarks saved for aspirational spring looks. I'm sharing a few picks further below in the newsletter.

Another more important thing in today's newsletter: I had the chance to chat with Eric Kim, staff writer at The New York Times, whose beautiful cookbook-meets-memoir, Korean American: Food That Tastes Like Home, is out on March 29th. I highly recommend giving it a look—the inventive and flavorful recipes like creamy bucatini with roasted seaweed, paired with Eric's signature lyrical writing, are worth it.

Until next week,
Alisha Ramos 

This Week's Recommendations

An Interview with Eric Kim, Author of the New Cookbook Korean American: Food That Tastes Like Home

Who is Korean American for, and why this particular cookbook as your first?

First, I want people to see this as both a Korean and an American cookbook. For this reason, I believed it to be important that “Korean American” isn’t hyphenated in the title. When you hyphenate Korean American, it becomes an adjective. I consider my mother the Korean half of the book, and I’m the American part. I also want this cookbook to be found in the general category bookshelf at the bookstore, not on an “ethnic” or “international” shelf. 

The cookbook also has a memoir aspect to it. In that way, I’m hopeful that I can help people and their families feel seen.  Ultimately, Korean American is simply a story about a mother and her son cooking together. 

You certainly made me feel seen as a part Korean and American person. I also have to say that I loved your usage of Korean culinary words that I’ve never seen before in cookbooks or recipes—words like gim (seaweed) or doenjang (soybean paste).

I like to look carefully at the way we use words. I learned this lesson early in my career from a recipe I wrote in which I used gim for the first time. I actually didn’t think twice about using the word. But it’s interesting—as Koreans, we don’t have the same culinary diplomacy as other cuisines have, so it’s a bit harder for our terms to be adopted into the mainstream. The way I respond to that is to develop more recipes using these words—like gim—that I hope can go into the “mainstream” so that eventually, people will have these words in their vocabulary. My goal is to get more Korean food words into the dictionary!

There is a certain joy in knowing that you’re starting a conversation; I look forward to developing Korean recipes that use specific ingredients and words for the first time. I love the @NYT_first_said Twitter bot that tweets out words that have been used for the first time in the paper. I thought, “Yeahhh! I got the word ‘miyeokguk’ in the Times!”  It’s been exciting to watch Korean foods blow up so much. Now, everyone knows what kimchi tastes like.

Since writing this cookbook together with your mom—which sounded like such an intimate experience—how has your relationship with her or your views of her changed?

There’s a song, "Opaline" by Novo Amore, that I choose whenever I flash my cookbook's cover on Instagram. The song ends with the lyric, “I feel like I’m finally me.” And I feel like that. That’s what this book did. 

I thought I would write some compendium of Korean cooking and recipes from all over the country, but I realized that was too hard. I realized that by telling my story and my mother’s story, I could tell the Korean American story. 

Through writing, I learned my family’s history, my culture’s culinary history, and I even started forming my own opinions on how things should taste, etc. By writing this book, I felt like I was reconciling this sense of two parts of myself that were still straddling two countries. 

It all goes back to that choice about the title of the book—when you’re able to take away the hyphen in Korean-American, it’s just…Korean American. Both. I am both. 

This book changed my life in very material ways, too. It got me a lot of jobs. Just the simple concept of getting a book deal—that opened a lot of doors for me.

You write for major food media publications, some of which have recently ramped up coverage of Korean food. It’s suddenly very buzzy. Do you feel pressure to “represent” Korean cooking and recipes? Do you feel protective? How do you think about this?

My relationship with writing about Korean food has evolved so much in recent years. I am actually new to it. I first had to learn about it and decide where I stood. Overall, my stance is that I don't think you have to be from the culture to cook that culture's food. But acknowledging that power is part of that dynamic of cultural appropriation is essential.

Cultural appropriation is not a thing you can define in a sentence; it’s so dependent on power, and who you are in relation to a culture you’re writing about. If you’re coming at it from a reporter’s angle, and you provide all the research, provide all the context, and give credit where credit is due, then there is no reason why a white recipe developer can’t develop a Korean recipe. Cultural appropriation is all about power, and people need to say and recognize that more. 

A question from a GNI reader: “What are some good starter recipes to introduce friends to Korean flavors?”

Hmmm, I’d say that what I want is for people to expand their concept of a “pantry” is. If a recipe requires anchovies or capers, most people wouldn’t say, “This is so unrealistic. I can’t shop for this.” Like, yes, you have to get all these things from H-Mart! It’s probably equidistant to your Publix! I’m trying to meet people where they are, yet also expand their concept of what “pantry” means.

Do you have a pantry must-have or a favorite banchan (side dish)?

Must-have: Doenjang. I need multiple kinds. I want everyone to have doenjang in their fridge. It’s so good, especially if you pair it with honey.

Favorite Banchan: I always have a jar of kimchi in the fridge. My favorite brand is Kim Chee Pride, Inc., and I get it on FreshDirect. This is the only kimchi I’ve had that tastes like home.  

My dream is to one day own a kimchi fridge. Do you have any specific fantasies about your future dream kitchen?

I want a huge, long dining table as part of the kitchen. I want shelves all over. I’m inspired by what Nigella Lawson’s kitchen looks like, and even my tiny studio mimics that.

I want people to remember me for my writing. I don’t want people to know what my face looks like, actually. We are so oversaturated by individual “brands” and this concept of “viral influencer sensationalism,” and I feel alienated by that sometimes. I do like attention but not that much attention!

This Week's Reads

• Something we’ve been curious about, tbh: exactly how nannies help powerful women “do it all” (The Cut)
• “When anything on social media can become A Thing, trends take on an unnerving shape and velocity. ”The Age of Everything Culture Is Here.  (Wired)
• On why we (still!) use ‘lol’ so much. (Vice)
• How to support a child who is on the transgender spectrum (The New York Times)
• How much should clothes actually cost? (Fashionista)
• Inside the new age world of manifesting, which is everywhere these days (The Guardian)
• “I’m Korean, I don’t relate to the K-wave, and that’s okay.” (Refinery29)
• Are voice notes > phone calls? (The Guardian)
• Exercise is good for you. The exercise industry may not be. (The New Yorker)
• Declutter your brain by crossing things off your “needle list” (Huffington Post, h/t Just Good Shit)
• Calling all 90’s kids: would you ever get a landline again? (The New York Times)
• Feel-good story of the day: can you imagine?! (Glamour)