When it comes to cooking, I find myself turning towards preparing dishes I remember my mother making when I was a child & still living with them: Japanese-style curry with vegetables & beef, sausage & sauerkraut, chicken wings & drumsticks in oyster sauce, bulgogi, kimchibap, mandu, etc. Even though I add my own little touches to some of the dishes (ex. lime juice, red pepper powder & replacing part of the water with red wine in the case of the curry) and the fact that my mother may no longer make some of these dishes, cooking and eating these dishes just brings me home in some way, reminding me of the way the family used to all sit around the table and eat dinner as well talk about our days or other interesting topics. Living alone now, I tend to just eat with some form of entertainment to pass the time: a book, the tv or some music.

Given that, it's probably no surprise why I enjoyed tonight's dish of bibimbap so much. It's another of those childhood dishes that I don't really get much of a chance to have since I can't rely on Chef Mom to make it. I didn't really realize how much missed it until c mentioned it in ye olde blog. The nice thing is that once I want to make it, I can simply call my mother up and ask her how to make something: she's more than willing (and sometimes too willing =) to tell me how to prepare the dish. After grabbing some vegetables (carrots, spinach, bean sprouts, squash) + beef (flank steak bulgogi-style) and preparing them into spoon-sized pieces, I piled generous portions on rice and mixed it in with the traditional house sauce for the dish: gochoojang (red pepper paste), soy sauce and sesame oil. The first spoonful was simply heavenly...I have to make this more often.