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Life

2018

December 31, 2018

Can it really be 2019 already?  We’ve spent our last week of 2018 on the couch or in the kitchen (or scattering toy trucks from one end of the house to the other, one guess as to who is doing what), thoroughly unwinding and nonstop eating and generally super enjoying ourselves, and I hope you have been too.

I hear every year feels more this way than the one before it, but this one in particular has really blown by.  B3 went from a mostly stationary, roly-poly bub to a chirpy, hyper-mobile toddler who loves red fire trucks, “tooties” (cookies), and “chu chu man” (Superman), and who can run at a truly impressive clip, but never more so than when his butt is out and you’re trying to put his pants back on him.  B2 and I have both been busier as lawyers than we have ever been, traveling lots, and at the same time, this little musubi is on the way, and, of course, this cookbook happened too.

Between the vagaries of all of these adventures, the posts on this little space have been sparser and more surface-level than I might have liked over the last year.  But with the year winding down and a little more time to process all that’s happened, I thought I’d share a few snippets of our year in photos and a few of my final thoughts about what writing A Common Table and seeing it out in the world this year has meant.  (What is New Year’s for, if not for navel-gazing?)

christmas 2018 | two red bowls

christmas 2018 | two red bowls

christmas 2018 | two red bowls

For me, one of the most pressing things about writing a cookbook was figuring out what (if anything!) my book had to add to a world of cookbooks that is increasingly crowded. Beyond sharing the recipes that were near and dear to my heart, what was the story that I wanted to share? In the introduction of A Common Table, I wrote that the spirit of the book is really our son, who will grow up Korean, Chinese, and Irish but most of all, American, and who will grow up eating foods from all sorts of cultures from one kitchen, at one table. Ultimately, I wanted the book to be a reflection of the idea that we, as Americans, are so much more than just one culture.

Still, what surprised me most about the cookbook, and what has been most rewarding about creating A Common Table, were the responses from readers of the book who actually did feel like this was something they hadn’t seen before, but that they’d been looking for. I didn’t expect the number of folks who have messaged me to say that they also come from multicultural households and were excited to see a collection of recipes that represented that multiculturalism, or those who found the book relatable because they, too, connected to in-laws from a totally different culture through cooking, or because they felt the recipes reflected elements of their own Asian-American experiences.

In some sense, the fact that this still feels new means that we have a ways to go. But in other ways, these messages amaze me. They remind me that it wasn’t so long ago that I was a kid in South Carolina in one of a handful of Chinese families in our town, feeling like I did not belong, and, at times, wishing I could trade in my childhood of stinky tofu and pork knuckle soup for something more “normal.” I didn’t write that much in the book about growing up as a minority (in large part because there are many folks out there who have done it better than I can!) but it became an unspoken part of the book anyway–if I grew up with these memories, both good and not so good, and my life and my family’s identity has increasingly become interwoven with different cultures and experiences, what can be taken from that?

The answer, for me, was in food, and in the recipes I shared in the book. My hope was that A Common Table would show how food can draw connections between the past and present, between B2’s family and mine, and how it can carry that forward through B3. I really love that this is the way that some of you felt about it, too. Especially in a time like now, when it often seems like we’re moving away from recognizing what we have in common and more into focusing on what divides us, these messages remind me that maybe we are moving forward together, to a place where we can celebrate diversity rather than wish it away.

In that sense, I just wanted to say thank you. Seeing the things you’ve made and reading your takeaways from the book have been so special. One of B2’s friends wrote words about the book that I thought were better than anything I wrote myself: “[The] stories and family photos embedded between the recipes speak to an unassailable[] truth: Food is culture. Food is history. Food is memory. Food is love.” At its simplest, I was happy if the book could be nothing more than a personal history of our family and the things we like to eat, and if nothing else, it could be the book I reached for in the kitchen to cook for my own family. But if it can speak to a little more than that, if to some of you it represents how food can be a tether to the past and a bridge to the future, to connect us across different places, generations, and experiences–then that’s truly a dream come true, and I’m so grateful to you for that.

I’m also so grateful to you for sticking with me through one more year of ramblings here on Two Red Bowls, including this monster post. Thank you so much for being here! Happy New Year, friends–I can’t wait to see you in 2019!

christmas 2018 | two red bowls
christmas 2018 | two red bowls
christmas 2018 | two red bowls
christmas 2018 | two red bowls
christmas 2018 | two red bowls
christmas 2018 | two red bowls
christmas 2018 | two red bowls
christmas 2018 | two red bowls

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  1. Barbara

    December 31, 2018 at 6:45 am

    Each time your “Two Red Bowls” e-mail pops up I feel a bit heartened because of the perseverance you’ve shown with your site.
    This is the first message I read & am loving watching your son grow so quickly into a happy youngster. Good parenting there.

    Thank you ever so much. Happy New Year from Knoxville, TN.

    Reply
  2. Bill McGRATH

    December 31, 2018 at 12:19 pm

    hOPE 23019 IS AS GOOD AS IT CAN BE FOR ALL 3B’s
    Best to you and yours always

    Reply
  3. Emily

    January 2, 2019 at 9:45 am

    What a wonderful ode to the year 2018 and a beautiful message about your cookbook (it gave me goosebumps!) Happy New Years and congratulations!! What a wonderful year 2018 was for you!

    Thank you for spreading the message of acceptance, understanding, and love.

    Reply
  4. Erika

    January 8, 2019 at 1:54 pm

    Cynthia! I’m just obsessed with you, and your little one, and your amazing blog/food journey. I loved reading every word of this post (super ditto what B2’s friend said!) and I cannot wait to see Miss B4 and all the other magic I know you’ll bring in 2019!!

    Reply

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Hi! I’m Cynthia

An avid eater and dabbling food-maker living in California with my husband, “Bowl #2,” and our baby bowls, Luke and Clara.

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  • A little video!  Red curry kabocha soup with @kitchenaidusa’s K400 Blender to get us through the no-man’s-land stretch between holidays and during kitchen renovations.  It’s been slow but so exciting to see our house re-emerge from under tarps and ram board, and the transition has been easier because we’ve had KitchenAid small appliances like this one to tide us over.  All you need to do is simmer a bit of Thai red curry paste with velvety coconut milk until it smells amazing, add in kaffir lime leaves and Thai basil, a little brown sugar and fish sauce, a touch of salt if you want, and blend it all up with roasted kabocha until smooth.  It ends up complex and nuanced, sweet and savory and spicy, in 10 minutes of hands-on time.  The full recipe and more about the K400 Blender is #ontheblog this morning! 📹 AND 🎶(!!) by the most talented @bowl_n2 a bowl_n1 could ever ask for 😭✨❤️ #marksofmaking #sponsored
  • What the first Sunday of December looked like four years ago:  sleeping in and baking 🍪 What it looks like this year:  a toddler doing a dance while eating peanuts, a chubby baby probably napping way too late, a tree hastily and triumphantly purchased (and now, partially trimmed before I decided to sit on my butt and Instagram). Two way more tired, but ever happier bowls. 🎄
  • There is construction just to the left of this and construction to the right 😜but in this five foot stretch only, peaceful fall things making my heart happy. 🍂✨ Happy Friday eve!
  • Honey sesame corn pudding up #ontheblog this morning in the ramp up to Thanksgiving!  I’m a bad child of the South and am new to corn pudding, but what I lack in history I’m now making up for in fervor—a crisp edge but a soft pudding center, creamy but studded with corn, sweetly decadent but just one savory note shy of dessert.  Sesame oil and sesame seeds (borrowed from the sesame cornbread in my book 😬) add a nuttiness and a tiny bit of crunch.  It ends up somehow reminiscent of toasty kettle corn and chawanmushi at the same time, and if you need me on Thanksgiving you can find me with a casserole dish of it all to myself 🌽 Recipe is on the blog this morning!  What do you guys plan to make?  Two weeks to go!! 🦃 #f52wrappedup
  • Partnering with @kitchenaidusa to share a fall pesto recipe #ontheblog this morning!  We’re working with KitchenAid for my entire kitchen and it’s one of the most exciting parts of our renovation 😱 but until the kitchen is ready, I’m sharing a few recipes made with the equally amazing small appliances that we’ve been using to cook in the meantime--like this 7 Cup Food Processor.  More on the blog along with a Sriracha & roasted broccoli pesto recipe✌🏼#ad #partner #marksofmaking
  • The start of my favorite season:  Thanksgiving Side Season. 🤓🤓🤓🤓 Googling Thanksgiving menus from now until the 28th bye!!!!!!! (And also posting this recipe soon 👏🏼)
  • One more birthday this week!! One year after #acommontablecookbook came into the world, I’m still overjoyed every time I see one of its recipes in another kitchen, or when I hear that our multicultural family is like yours, or that a recipe from my childhood is reminiscent of one from yours.  It’s more wonderful than I could have imagined when I began to write this book.  Thank you! 🙏🏼✨
  • Our newly-minted three-year-old. (Wait, what?) Loves saying something wrong just so he can correct us—it’s blue! LOL it’s not blue, it’s greeeen.  Loves ordering “crackuhs” (fries) from the kids’ picture menu but is mystified when broccoli usually appears instead (“where da crackuhs?”) Now knows birthdays mean cake and parties and has been chirping all week, “Lukie birday! Let’s go birday party! Everybody birday!” Is hilarious and maddening and tiring and wonderful, and the greatest, sweetest joy (or, one of two) we could ever have imagined.  Thank you so much for making us parents, Lukaboo.  Big camera smiles courtesy of his favorite person in the world, @bowl_n2 ❤️(more of which are on the blog this morning!)

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