Gaby Jimenez

One of my new favorite meals is bossam, or a Korean boiled pork wrap. This dish centers around seasoned, boiled pork and softened napa cabbage. This is then paired with a variety of fix-ins, including pickled radishes, jalapeno slices, kimchi, saeu-jeot (salted shrimp), and ssamjang, a thick and spicy soybean paste. The first time I tried this meal, my partner and I approached it a little lost and confused, but a kind Korean uncle approached us in the restaurant and assembled his perfect bite pictured here. With his guidance and enthusiasm around sharing, we enjoyed many delicious perfect bites after that. 

This mollusk is a long time favorite of mine. It is a sustainable filter feeder whose history in the United States has shifted from being a cheap, abundant peasant food to a food reserved for the affluent and trendy. Usually paired with mignonette, a dressing consisting of finely minced shallots, freshly cracked pepper, and vinegar, fresh lemon, and the hot sauce of your choosing, the oysters themselves, when plump and tender, are refreshing and succulent. They are often described as tasting like the ocean, though they really taste like the water they were raised in, whether that be a crisp, clean lagoon or the muddy swamps of Louisiana. Both very delicious in their own ways. Oysters are often considered an acquired taste, and for me I acquired them as a child in the backyard at family parties, gleefully slurping up all the oysters my dad had painstakingly grilled for himself. Today, I enjoy a dozen or two oysters alongside my partner, where we perform a little ritual in preparing each one, cheersing our perfect bites, and slurping them down together. Of course followed by a short debrief about how good that last one was, only to be repeated for every one that follows.