Sook Sundays: Moments of Inspiration
Random recommendations from the depths of restaurant opening preparations...
We are just a few weeks away from opening baroo. I’ve only just recovered from a harrowing ten days where between our two restaurants, we had five inspections by the LA County Health department and California Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC), some of which we failed. After some scrambling, we have now cleared almost all of the hurdles though we’re still waiting for our beer and wine license for baroo to be officially approved. Once that final approval comes through, that would be the sound of corks popping from bottles of additive & intervention-free Slovenian skin contact wines that you will hear resounding from our corner of the Arts District. But for now, we are still waiting for that email from the ABC.
I really had wanted to leave my past life as a lawyer behind, but with our unexpectedly challenging inspections, I’ve found myself drafting carefully constructed proposals and entreating letters trying to persuade our inspectors to have mercy on our small restaurant business. Hours of my day are spent filling out forms and spreadsheets — from online to paper, bank forms, vendor account opening forms, W-9s, payroll forms, inventory spreadsheets, budget spreadsheets, tables relating to human relations that make me feel quite disconnected from other humans. While chatting about a potential collaboration last week, a fellow small business owner-mother of a young child joked about the glamour of our jobs. Her creative passion for her work has evolved into becoming a full-time event planner responsible for wrangling other creatives, their representatives, the public—all with no budget ever. She is loving it. My official title at baroo should be Chief Form Filler. “Oh, what do you do at baroo?” “I fill out forms.”
I ruefully have observed that I switched careers because I love to cook but I now rarely get the chance to cook at all. Or write, and I apologize for not making the time to send out a dispatch from this corner (or any digital corner) in a while. I’m in desperate need of carving out some time to attend to my internal life and infuse my days with some inspiration. So even though our opening is dangerously close, I wanted to send a note in a series that I call Sook Sundays.
In Hong Kong, while I was juggling my legal job with my growing culinary pop-up Sook, I planned a lot of pop-up events and cooking classes on Sundays. They were my Sook Sundays and those Sundays sharing Korean food with my friends and guests in my home gave me life. So I’m resurrecting Sook Sundays in newsletter form, selfishly more to remind myself of the beautiful, quirky, illuminating things that I come across. Free form and potentially quite random.
As I’ve been drowning in paperwork, these days I have looked to artists and creatives whose work has lifted me out of my imaginary cubicle and given me life recently.
Studio Visit: Gala Porras-Kim
When visiting an artist’s studio, I want to whisper and am careful not to disturb anything, and am always cognizant that it’s very brave to open the doors of one’s studio and allow strangers to pore over your works in progress. But it’s the unfinished works, the stacks of blank canvases along walls, piles of brushes or pencils on a table, unopened crates from past shows, the energy of creating that hangs in the air— this is what I love to see. Last week, I tagged along with a friend to visit the Los Angeles studio of Gala Porras-Kim and she so generously talked about her practice and what she’s working on for her two upcoming fall shows in Seoul — one at the MMCA and one at the Leeum. Hearing her passionately describe her research into obscure topics such as museum deaccessioning policies and seeing how she translates what her meticulous and academic work into thoughtful installations, drawings and sculpture was a highlight of my otherwise bureaucratic month. Hearing how she sees the also bureaucratic world of museums, finding meaning and artistry in the bureaucracy, was the right discussion for me at the right time. I left our day with Gala lighter and at peace with my tasks at hand if that makes any sense.
Watch: Nam June Paik: Moon is the Oldest TV
Another moment of renewed inspiration came when Kwang and I watched this latest documentary on artist Nam June Paik, produced and narrated by Steve Yeun, directed by Amanda Kim. The last movie Kwang and I have seen and probably will see until, oh, 2024.
Truly a trailblazer, prescient and playful, Paik had a fascinating mind. I suppose part of my awe comes from the fact Paik was practically my grandparents’ generation and yet lived the most extraordinarily avant-garde life that was such a counterpoint to mainstream Korean society. As someone who cannot completely shake off the expectations of those around me and truly adopt a DGAF attitude, I am drawn to those who are that free. Artists, filmmakers like Bong Joon Ho, and yes, my husband whose perspective on life is more in line with Nam June Paik and Bong Joon Ho than with many other high-profile chefs.
Eat: Girl & Dug Farm
The baroo team (plus our son) traveled south near San Diego to visit the lauded Girl & Dug Farm, run by Korean American second generation farmer (with a PhD!) Aaron Choi. I love that Aaron’s parents bought farmland almost twenty years ago and began growing Korean staple vegetables like baechu cabbage and moo radish, and families across the US were able to make kimchi at home and cook our food because Aaron’s family provided us with the bounty necessary for our cuisine. His family has supplied vegetables to Korean supermarkets like the Galleria and HMart under a different name for years. Girl & Dug is a more recent project that focuses on growing exquisite herbs and flowers, many also of Korean origin, with relationships to many of the country’s finest restaurants. Aaron showed us the patch of land where he’s growing a thicket of Korean angelica trees 두릅나무 whose shoots are a spring delicacy. Kwang and I admire Aaron and his family so much and are indebted to them as Korean cooks. The fact that we can talk to Aaron about greens or vegetables that we would love to see grown in the US and that he entertains and is even excited to explore our esoteric suggestions means so much to us. It is a creative collaboration between cook and farmer, and it’s energizing to know that we have such an accomplished creative partner in Aaron.
For the home cook, Girl n Dug also has stunning boxes of their greens and vegetables available for FedEx delivery that we have tried and which I really believe are worth every penny, even more so now that we’ve been to the farm.
Anyway, these are a few things that I have loved recently. Now I will be retreating into my baroo cave again. Aside from all the forms, there are so many beautiful developments happening at baroo. I will try to pop back out to write more about the actual opening (and go through more of my emails and messages, I’m so sorry. A friend suggested I get a remote personal assistant and when baroo is a raging success, I will do). Happy Sunday!
xx mina
Mina - Can you share a recipe for Jangajji when you have a moment?
Mina - When do you expect to be able to open the new restaurant? People ask me, and I don't know! HELP! Thanks!!