I had been a 90% vegan for approximately 3 years but recently heard about a Korean soup restaurant and so today, I skittled out of work in the middle of a work day to get lunch that’s about 1.5 hour away. “Follow your bliss” was how I justified this decision as I walked toward the parking lot.
The restaurant was nearly empty when I showed up at 2:30PM. Two Korean men were drinking beer and watching Korean game show on the big screen. The restaurant wasn’t exactly pleasant. It smelled like wet chlorine, a cross between a slaughter house and a swimming pool.
I ordered something called the pork neck bone soup with vegetable. I was really famished. When they brought out the kimchee (marinated cabbage and radish), I ate almost everything before they nearly had a chance to be set on the table.
The waitress came by and spoke to me in Korean, and I motioned that I didn’t speak the language. Then a woman appeared. She appeared to be in her late 50′s. Before I knew what was going on, she was saying to me, “Slow down! Slow down! Don’t eat so fast! You must be hungry! We bring you another bowl of rice, okay?” She looked slightly amused/confused as if she had just sighted a 3 headed animal. Her accent was thick, but I could understand 90% of her English.
Well, truth be told, I was very hungry and had been thinking about this meal even as the night before. Outside it was dreadful - wet, windy, cloudy, gray, cold, a little bit like how I was feeling. On the table was this soup, served in a sizzling clay pot looking devilishly spicy, and exceedingly tasty. Yum! (Steam was rising.) I had no idea how to tackle it. I poked at it and looked at it from the sideways. A spoon came from the left field; she handed one to me. Right! A spoon would be very helpful! Then the woman asked me how I came to know this restaurant, how I knew to order the best dish on the menu, etc. Soon after, she was taking my chopsticks to fish out the pieces of meat, and rearranging my tableware. And now, rice is rice, vegetables are vegetables, broth is broth, condiments are condiments, and voila, there’s even a little plate of pork bones.
She motioned the waitress to bring a bottle of sesame oil, and suggested that I mix in the radish sauce and the sesame oil with the rice. Before I knew what was happening, I was giving her the two thumbs up, and trying everything as she dictated. I was eating the meat on the pork bones with my hands, and eating raw peppers dipped in sweet bean paste.
Now she sat herself down opposite from me, as if we had made a lunch date. It seemed odd that someone would take over my eating utensils, and invite themselves to sit down. All the while, she was watching how much I was eating, how I was eating, taking care to order the waitress to bring more stuff. “This is my favorite dish! Do you like it?” Underneath her joking tone was a critical, slightly icy, and bold stare that had the look of someone who’s seen it all.
That’s when the story telling began. “I was never a good girl. Had no education. But my husband, very good.” She was burdened with helping to run the family business. She was sent to high school but couldn’t deal with German, algebra, and European history. She ended up in a community college for 2 years, and came to the US. She was going to school but figured that it wouldn’t do her any good so she opened a business. With $10,000, she succeeded at her first business, which was running a bar with a stage for rock and roll; it was stationed near a military base. For $10,000, they bought some land as well. To make a long story short, in 25 years, that piece of land alone is worth an unimaginable amount of money.
I told her nothing about myself, other than my liking for this neck bone soup, and that I felt that the flavors of the soup was sharp, not sweet.
Last year her husband of 40 years passed away. She looked at me in the eyes and said emphatically, “When you are young, you must enjoy it, everything, everyday. Because once the eyes are closed, there isn’t anything anyone can do. There is nothing, nothing, nothing anyone can do.”
She must have mentioned the part about “once the eyes are closed, etc.” at least 3 times.
When I got up to leave, she said I’ll walk out with you. When she got up with all her get up, I did a double take. This lady was dressed from head to toe like a rapping gangsta - in matching black jump suit with two white stripes, some sick white sneakers and a pair of gold sunglasses! Her hair was dyed. Her teeth were veneer perfect. So we walked out the restaurant together. A sense of pride welled up in me. I don’t know why.
The Korean lady said, “Shit, I had no idea what’s going on in high school.” I said, What?!?!?! You’re 73 years old?!?!?!?!
I’m not sure when I will have the neck bone soup again, even if it is salvaging a part of the animal that would have gone to waste, i.e., gnawing on the bones that no one else wants to eat. I really loved this soup, but hate everything that has to do with animal husbandry.
