Funny Coincidence

I really like to cook. This probably started because I really like to eat. I became very fascinated by flavor when I was quite young, under five years old, and living in Germany with my family. We lived in Heidelberg which had not been totally devastated by WWII and my father, as an officer in the US Army, had access to both post commissary food and most of the local markets around our apartment so we had good bread and good cheese along with other goods. We used to have dinners of that bread and cheese along with delicious sardines and I would just stuff myself on blue cheese and sardines. I suppose those were very odd foods for a very young child to adore but they were a sign of things to come in my lifelong food journey.

Luckily I married a man who likes to eat as well and is adventurous in his food choices too. So we eat all cuisines at our house from American to Japanese to Chinese, German, Irish--you name it we have probably eaten it and made it at home. Clearly there are some problems in making some cuisines simply because of the difficulties in getting the ingredients but in our modern lives those ingredients can be found online. These days it is easier for me to get fresh turmeric at our local store than to get King Arthur flour or really any flour.

Anyway, tonight we are having kimchi jiigae, a sort of pork and kimchi stew from Korea. The funny coincidence is that we had already planned to have our kimchi jiigae even before I read the newspaper this morning where I found an article about five foods that people should eat to improve their health and their mental outlook during this stressful time. Lo and behold kimchi was one of the foods. We had planned the meal because today is supposed to be one of the last cold days of the season with the morning low right around 30F and kimchi jiigae is a great cold weather meal. But now I can eat it knowing I am doing the right thing (in theory anyway) for my mental and physical health.