The Book I'm Carrying Around: Please Look After Mom

Please Look After Mom by Kyung-Sook Shin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It's not often that I find modern, Korean stories in English, so I quickly add them to my to-read pile.  This is one of those books. When I told my own mother about it, as it turned out, she had already read it, in Korean.  "That's the one where...[the end]."  Thanks, Mom.  Now, let's get on to Chi-hon looking for her mother.

What do you do when a family member goes missing?  What happens when it's not a child, but your mother, a grown woman? How do you get the word out, what is the appropriate amount for a reward, where do you start looking? And how long do you keep looking?

These are the immediate questions Chi-hon and her family face when Mom gets lost in the Seoul subway station. The family argues about the answers and continues to fuss, disagreeing with the best and most respectful way to look for their mother.  As they search, they realize how little they really knew about their mother, and how little they ever thought about her in anyway other than as "mother."

As Chi-hon, her siblings, and her father share the pieces of their mother and wife that they knew, it made me think of my own mother and myself as a mother. Have I ever thought about what my mother wanted to do with her life, assuming that being my mother was not her whole life dream?  Do my children ever think of me as a person, outside of being the woman who cooks, signs permission slips, and drives them places?

Kyung-sook Shin blended Korean customs and ways of thought into the story as she revealed who Mom was through her family's memories and their search for her. By the end, we are left with an idea of where she has gone and are hopeful that the family will figure it out, too.

The story is told, for the most part, in second-person ("you look around"), which is a very rarely used and difficult point-of-view. It took a few chapters to get used to having the narrator speak directly to me, but it also was successful in eventually drawing me further in, as if I needed to be part of the search party. When Shin switches POV it was a clear signal that I really needed to pay attention now.  She used the technique well, but it sometimes gets confusing and does take a minute to get used to.

This is the first of her novels that I have read, but apparently she was twelve previous ones. I intend to look for them - and hope that they are available as English translations.



View all my reviews

Join the conversation on Facebook: Just Piddlin' with Frances

Family Cooking - Making Mandoo (Korean dumplings)

One of my most favorite childhood memories is watching my mother cook Korean food.  It seemed like whatever my mother made - bulgo-gi, kimchi, mandoo - required her hands getting messy and the recipe existed in her head (I don't think my mother has ever owned or opened a cookbook).  One of the few times I was allowed to help was when she made mandoo - Korean dumplings.  But unlike nowadays when mothers are encouraged to let children help in the kitchen to spend quality time together and make the children feel involved, my participation was solely a matter of two more hands helping to make the work go faster.  Making mandoo is a bit of work, there's a bunch of ingredients, lots of chopping and mixing, so no one thinks to make just a dozen or so, they are made by the hundreds; in fact, the wrappers are sold in packs of 50.

Many hands make light work.

1. The first step in making mandoo is to prepare the filling, which, according to the cookbook, is a mixture of ground pork and/or beef, tofu, bean sprouts, sesame seeds, scallions and spices.  My mother's recipe also includes rice noodles and eggs.
2. Cover a baking tray in rice flour to lay out the mandoo as they are made.
3. Carefully fill the wrapper or mandoo skin with a spoonful of filling.
4. Dampen the edge of the skin with a fingertip dipped in beaten egg and fold in half, press edges to seal.
5. Lay the completed mandoo on the floured tray, covering them with a light layer of flour as you go along.

Filled mandoo, laid out on floured tray

When all done, cook some now and freeze some for later.

To freeze, lay them flat on a tray so that they are not overlapping or touching.  After they are frozen, remove them from the tray and store in zip-top bags in the freezer.

Fried mandoo with dipping sauce - yummm!

There's a few options to cook them.

• I love them fried!  Heat cooking oil and when its hot, carefully slide mandoo into the oil.  When they are brown and float, they are done.  
• A healthier option is to boil them - place in boiling water for a few minutes, as you would prepare ravioli.  
• Mandoo is also used in various soups, especially a rice cake soup traditionally eaten on New Years Day.

Prepare a dipping sauce by mixing 2 parts soy sauce to 1 part rice vinegar, with a sprinkling of sesame seeds to taste.

Enjoy!

Who doesn't love street food?

There's just something about food cooked in a truck or on the side of the road that's irresistable, right? And international food - even more so.

As a kid, I spent a summer in Seoul with my family and I remember hanging out with my uncle and cousins who would buy all kinds of food from street stands.  One day, we shared a newspaper cone filled with little steamed snails.  When I went with my husband a couple years ago, we went to visit a palace and as soon as we stepped out of the cab, there was a woman making duk - she was squatting next to a little grill, cooking up these little rice cakes.  Ahh - I was ready to hand over my won for a taste, but my husband pulled me along.  I more than made up for it during the week, though.

Now, I get my Korean street food fix at the grocery store.  I generally prefer to go grocery shopping during the week, but will make the exception for the Korean market, expressly because there's a little tent out front where a woman is cooking on a plain, flat grill.  And yes, I will admit, I've gone by there just to go to the tent, even when I didn't need any groceries.  She has these fish-shaped, bean-filled snack and rice cakes, but I usually get ho-dduk - its this hot, pancake-ish treat filled with a sugary, peanutty mixture. Mmmmm.

Ho-dduk, fresh from the griddle