Welcome to yobodish, where you’ll find authentic Korean

recipes that have been in the family for generations. I also

throw in some all-American dishes with a dash of Lebanese,

Irish and German traditional foods as well.

You can also take a peak at a biographical cookbook I’m

currently writing titled, Goodbye Joe. It’s a collection of

stories about a Korean immigrant family adjusting to life in

1970s Oklahoma as well as family recipes that helped make

warm memories and create lifelong traditions.

My parents grew up during the Japanese occupation and

Korean War, and some of the stories are inevitably sad. I was

debating on whether or not to include such somber stories in

what is traditionally a casual, lighthearted format. As a friend

remarked, “I don’t know how people would react to reading

about a beloved aunt dying of cancer in one paragraph and

hey, hope you enjoy this delicious dish, in the next.” I decided

to write a condensed version and save the detailed narrative

for the family history book I am also writing.

I add new recipes daily and chapters as soon as I finish writing them.  This is my online working journal, an extended blog, and a time capsule containing my family’s memories and milestones. The F5 tornado that hit May 3, 1999, left a trail of destruction from Oklahoma to Tennessee and destroyed our childhood home. It was a brutal reminder of how things can be taken away in a blink of an eye. While things can get destroyed or lost, shared stories and memories will always stay with us. I’m hoping to preserve those stories and memories through this website and the two books.

What Does Yobo Mean?

I’ve always been confused by the Korean word “yobo.” It's what my parents used to call each other but people also answer the phone, "Yobo seh yo." I've also heard people calling out "yobo seh yo" to get attention. The Urban Dictionary provides three definitions. 1) A casual address to ones wife, husband or sweetheart. 2) A yuppie hobo. 3) A stunning specimen of a human being.  While I don’t have anything against yuppie hobos or stunning specimen of humans, in this case, yobo means spouse or sweetheart. As my mom always says, you can always tell the mood of the cook by the taste of the dish. One of the best things about cooking is watching family and friends sitting together and enjoying the meal. Without my family’s support and prodding, I wouldn’t have started this frustrating-at-times, challenging-at-best project. This project has forced me to exercise a part of my brain that’s been dormant for  13 years.

Recipes and photos: I made every dish on this site. I “prettied them up”, took the photos with my Canon PowerShot SD500 and set them out to be devoured by whoever was around, usually my sisters and brother-in-law were the hungry munchers.

Pronunciations and spellings: Most Korean dishes have multiple spelling variations. For example, I’ve seen bi bim bop spelled bee ben bop, be been bap, etc. Bi bim bap is the most common spelling but it’s not the right pronunciation. Bap is not pronounced like “rap”. It should be spelled bop or bahp with an “ah” sound. Similarly, the jang in dang jang jigeh does not sound like rang. It’s pronounced with an “ah” sound. It should be spelled jahng. The same applies to tahng su yuk. The most common spelling is tang su yuk but tang is not pronounced like the orange stuff astronauts drink in space. It’s pronounced with an “ah” sound. Regardless of how you spell these dishes, I hope you enjoy the recipes and they become a part of your family tradition.

Serving size: For most of the recipes on yobodish, I suggest serving size, but I don’t mean it. I know it’s customary to put how many a recipe serves, but if most families are like mine, the serving size recommendation goes out the window. If and when we follow a recipe, which is rare, the serving size is always off by at least two people, meaning two of us would go hungry if we went by what was listed.