Category: My Book

When we moved to Montclair in 1991, we started attending a church called KUPC. My husband wasn’t a Christian at the time, but a customer of his fish market let him know the church had a Korean school. He thought teaching the kids Korean was important, so that’s how our family’s journey into Christian fellowship…

My daughter Anne once asked me, “When are you truly happy?” Happiness is difficult to define, but time certainly flies when you do what you truly love. In that regard, I am happiest when gardening or painting. Preparing to host is similar—time goes by faster because my heart is in it. My husband had no…

It was still early in the morning when Jae called, asking me to receive a guest who was already on their way from JFK airport. This sudden guest was one of his upper classmates. I had only met him a couple of times before he moved back to LA, where he’d grown up. I opened…

I had lunch with Youngjoo. She is a friend of my younger sister and now teaches piano in college. She was delighted when I invited her to Hampton house on July 4th weekend one summer. She stayed overnight, and we watched the fireworks on the beach. We finally went out for lunch when the pandemic…

Ever since we moved to Brooklyn from our Montclair house, we began inviting our nieces, nephews, and our friends’ children—who affectionately call us uncle and aunt—for dinner, alongside our grown children. We secretly hoped to provide our children with a sense of growing up in an extended family, reminiscent of the olden days when all…

I met my husband, Jae, in March of 1982 in New York. I had been studying in Paris since 1980 as an art student. My sister Aera met someone in New York in 1982, and I flew over to attend her engagement. My other sister, Soonjin, who was living in NY with Dangsun at the…

I married my husband, who was a graduate student at Columbia, in the spring of 1983. Most of our friends were still students and singles at the time. Our wedding gifts mostly consisted of items affordable to college students, such as a $20 electric skillet or a set of forks. We initially moved into my…

“That’s not a nice neighborhood! Just have them stay with us!” My husband must be taking in new guests. Again? He convinced his friend to cancel the Airbnb booking for their children visiting NY and brought them to our house. This time, it’s his elementary school buddy’s son. He is in law school in Atlanta…

Our favorite meal of the day is definitely breakfast. Ever since we started intermittent fasting, breakfast became more important–literally the meal that’s breaking my fast.  When we have overnight guests who stay for more than a night, we rotate following menu:  @ fresh baked sourdough, chakshuka, strawberry scones, berries, coffee or tea @avocado toast, peach…

During the pandemic, many people rediscovered the joy of home cooking. There were days when supermarkets ran out of flour because everyone started baking bread at home. I learned bread making from my daughter, who worked in a bakery during her college days. Trapped in our Hamptons house for 18 months, I baked not only…