Eliza, from Scratch

by Sophia Lee

My hands still. “Halmeoni wrote these recipes?” “She wrote them for me when I told her I was moving to America. She said she would never forgive me if I forgot how to make the dishes she made me growing up. When I first moved here, I made these recipes so often, I knew them by heart within the first two months.”

I absolutely cried. This book has so much HEART!! And it made me miss my own grandmother, and her recipes. Many of my grandmother's recipes are Pennsylvania family recipes from her side of the family: "Aunt Evelyn's pasta salad", "Family Favorite Applesauce". :)

never questioned where she learned her recipes, or whether I would ever learn them, too. And I never made the connection that what she made for me, in turn, might have been made for her when she was younger.

I love this about South Korean food. There's so much love and connection between the food, their traditions, and family.

“As long as you make sure we’re hitting the points he wants us to hit. I’m not showing up to class and everyone else has mastered the techniques and I haven’t.” “Oh, Eliza . . . I’m not a miracle worker.” “Shut up. I’ll chop the onion.”

“How did you know how to make this?” He shrugs, breaking one of his eggs with the back of his spoon. “I didn’t really grow up around anything special. Not like you and miyeokguk. Nothing feels like it belongs to me, so I just try out every kind of cuisine I can figure out.”

now imagine dozens of women with overlapping limbs, coming together for their kimjang, which my mom once explained to me as the event of preparing kimchi. Suddenly, my memories of my mom alone on our tiled kitchen floor here in Austin feel much colder. Something that used to be a symbol of community turned into solitude. Why did I never join her? Why didn’t my dad?

“Read out the ingredients,” my mother instructs. I do as she says. There aren’t many surprises. Kimchi and rice, obviously. Gochujang, which is spicy pepper paste, for seasoning. Sesame oil for the unmistakable aroma. Cut strips of gim, or toasted seaweed, for garnish. My mom was right about the simplicity. It seems hard for even me to really mess this up.

One thing I absolutely loved about this book was these bits of Korean food knowledge are slipped in so smoothly as a PART of the story, not just as an info dump. You learn so much about Korean culture without it disrupting the flow of the story. So beautifully written! And I was super excited to see how much I've soaked in from my 4 years of k-pop fandom! ;)

Does Wesley like to learn? Do we actually have something in common? “You bring the street smarts, I bring the book smarts,” I say with a wide grin.

there is something relaxing about mixing by hand. That’s something else I’ve noticed about my lessons with my mom. There’s a lot of tactility in Korean cooking, whether it’s rolling gimbap or hand-mixing japchae or rubbing paste onto leaves of homemade kimchi. It makes me feel like I’m actually a part of it. And maybe all along, it was this easy to be part of it, if only I had been interested enough to ask.

When Wesley talks about cooking, he sounds so intelligent. He knows so much, can explain things better than the articles I’m reading online to prepare for these Friday sessions, and talks about cooking like it’s not just science, but art. He’s so competent. And I realize, belatedly, horrifically, that I find that competence . . . attractive.

“No one said your problems have to be the worst in the world in order for them to exist.”

He studies me and I notice when his gaze drops to my mouth and back to my eyes. “I think,” he says slowly, drawing the words out like syrup, “your face is saying something that you’re not ready to put into words. So I’ll wait.” He stands up from his seat and takes our empty dishes to the sink. The sound of the faucet running makes it so that I don’t have to say anything. I’m glad for the distance because he’s right. I’m at a complete loss for words.

He lets out a defeated sigh. “School is a specific kind of game, you know? And you play it so well—you, specifically. And it feels like sometimes, I barely even know the rules. I think I’m smart. I know a lot of things. I know how to entertain myself, how to feed myself, how to find new ways to do things. But it’s like that kind of knowledge doesn’t matter to them. There’s no way to prove it.” “‘Like only a certain sort of knowledge is valuable.’” It’s my mom’s voice coming from my own mouth.

“Eliza, don’t you know the most enticing way to spend my Friday nights is to hang out with you?”

My heartbeat amplifies in my ears. I want to say something, to respond with any semblance of coherence, but he looks at me with something so unfamiliar, I have to look away.

If cooking with others is an exchange, what I have given Eliza is time and what she has given me is revelation. She reminds me that things are more than a sum of their parts, and it’s only with Eliza’s guidance that, for the first time, I’ve been able to see the sum of myself and others properly.

“Are these the best cookies you’ve ever had?” I nod vigorously. “Literally no competition. I hope you’re satisfied with just the one, because I’m eating all the rest.”

He gently picks up my burnt hand and inspects it. “I wanted to ask . . . Does it still hurt?” he says quietly. The light from the film reflects off his black hair, giving him a halo. My throat is too thick to speak, so I shake my head. He looks at me, his eyes dark and glittering, and I have to swallow. I wonder if he can tell that I’m holding my breath. Then he presses his mouth onto my open palm, so softly, it feels like a whisper. It feels like he’s asking permission. “Wesley,” I say, but there’s no sound. “Eliza,” he murmurs against my hand. When he looks up at me, his expression is tortured. “Are we friends?” “I think so,” I say, the words on the cusp of trembling like autumn leaves.

Probably something along the lines of, ‘I just kissed possibly the smartest, cutest girl I know and am trying my hardest to act cool about it.’” He pretends to ponder for a moment and then adds, “Or maybe it said, ‘Thank God this girl kisses better than she cooks.’”

“You can plan if you want. That will make you feel more comfortable. But unexpected and new things will always happen, too, and when they do, you have to believe that you will make things okay.”

Maybe there was something to be said about letting go of the reins and knowing you would end up okay anyway.

It takes me a second to identify myself. I’m in the Culinary Arts kitchen, inhaling the curry Wesley made me. “There’s a reason I always took the photos on my phone. I knew I would want to keep looking at you.” I might cry.

with each recipe learned, I felt like I was meeting the person I lost. I began to recognize a country through the smells of the kitchen. I found the beauty of language in ingredients and dish titles. I felt the connection of family while preparing these dishes, passed from mother to daughter, mother to daughter. I learned to taste home.