egg-yo

the other day, i was watching/learning/helping ajumma make neng myun at home.

i learned three things:

1. start cracking the hard boiled egg from the fatter end.

2. no matter how hot or hard, have patience and persevere til the end!

3. seemingly simple tasks have more complicated meaning as we get older... 

as i was watching ajumma sweep around the kitchen, cutting up cucumbers and boiling the noodles, i found myself telling her how watching her suddenly made me miss my mom. it made me realize how long it's been since i've seen her in the kitchen. growing up, my grandmother always made me do the dishes (she'd tell me it was good practice for when i would be a wife). and she'd train me to peel and cut fruit (she'd tell me it was good practice for when i would be a daughter-in-law). whenever i'm home, my mom always calls me to the kitchen to watch her cook stuff. i guess that's why i enjoy it. cooking is not only stress relieving and calming, it gives me such good feelings and memories of the silent connection that linked me+gramma & me+mom. 

so naturally, when i stood there watching, ajumma would not allow me to really do much. however, she did hand me ONE task that day. she brought over 3 hard boiled eggs and told me to peel them. she taught me that you should crack them at the fatter ends first (it really does work better!). one touch and i noticed how hot those freakin' eggs were!!! i mentioned they were hot (hoping she would dunk them in cold water for a bit longer) but she just shrugged and said, yeah, they're hot huh?  so what could i do? i felt like it was not only a test of my determination, but my womanhood itself. (korean women cook and clean with strange resistance to temperatures on their hands). so i had to pretend that everything was dandy. all i remember were the beads of sweat forming from the heat and nervousness, trickling down my forehead while i screamed aloud - only in my mind...  i told meself: the pain will be over soon. the pain will be over soon. just crack them eggs and peel them delicately....you must prove yourself! the hard work paid off with perfectly peeled eggs to put in our cold neng myun. funny thing is, i think i was the only one who noticed... haha!