Slurping. Cautious, but unapologetic. My father sips a spoonful of the still-bubbling doenjang chigae from the worn ddukbaegi sitting not quite at the center of the table. Dinner always begins with the “clink” of my father’s steel chopsticks against a small porcelain plate of banchan, maybe some pickled mung beans or a saddle of kimchi. My brother and I knock our spoons against the sides of our ceramic bowls, which are filled with pearly mounds of rice. My mother plucks a single mung bean from the same small plate my father started with, the silvery chimes of her chopsticks floating toward our low kitchen ceiling. I can hear the patter of Hahlmuhnee’s* bare feet as she paces from the stove to the kitchen table and loads our bapsang with a basket of fresh kennip, chilies, and squash from the backyard garden, each a different shade of green, a plate bearing a whole roasted fish, and a pitcher of dark-amber, ice-cold corn tea. The worn, ellipse-shaped table we all sit around bears crayon graffiti and wads of gum on its underside but boasts a colorful assortment of more than a dozen banchan. My spoon and chopsticks remain untouched. Nothing tempts me. Not the doenjang chigae, the chilies I’d picked for Hahlmuhnee that morning, or the mung beans my parents favored. This is not what they eat on TV or what the kids at school eat with their families. Why couldn’t Hahlmuhnee just make spaghetti once in a while?