Bill Belew has raised 2 bi-cultural kids, now 34 and 30. And he and his wife are now parenting a 3rd, Mia, who is 8.

Korean Bibimbap

I don’t know if it tasted good or not. But it sure sounded fun to eat.

Daddy took a trip to Bangkok. He had to fly on a plane from San Francisco to Seoul, Korea before getting on another plane fro Seoul to Bangkok, Thailand.

I have to put the countries next to the cities because sometimes people don’t know where the cities are. Even people in airports who are going places. Really!

San Francisco. It’s in California. California is in the United States.

They ran out of some food on daddy’s flight before they got to him. That happens sometimes I guess. We ate at a diner the other day on the way home from the beach and the diner had run out of bread. I guess there were a lot of people at the diner who were going to Korea.

Daddy couldn’t get what he wanted so the stewardess asked him if would like to have some Bibimbap.

No idea what that is. Daddy didn’t know either. But the name was so fun he had to try.

But … how do you eat Bibimbap?

Thankfully, his food came with instructions.

Bibimbap is famous in Korea. I think they just like to say it to the waiters and waitresses. Then when it comes they have to eat it. Or maybe they like to put on their Facebook page, “I ate Bibimbap.” so their friends would laugh.

Bibimbap is steamed rice, minced beef and a bunch of veggies all cut up that daddy couldn’t recognize. He knew the carrots and cucumbers. But there were about six other somethings that had come out of the ground.

The veggies are in a bowl. You plop the rice (it had already been cooked) into the bowl with the veggies and mix them up. This is pretty hard to do if you don’t have a big bowl. Stuff falls out. And daddy is pretty clumsy anyway.

After that you pour in some olive oil. “In the bowl, daddy. Not on your skin!”

Finally you mix in some Gochuchang. But you have to try not to spit on the people near by when you say that word.

Gochuchang is a red chili paste. Repeat after me – chili = hot. And they gave everyone a tube of it about the size of travel toothpaste. Daddy tried just a little at first and it turned out to be way more than enough.

Result – it was quite good. Healthy.  And a lot of fun to say, too.

Talk to Bill and others about their experiences raising bi-cultural Japanese-American kids.