Where did I park my car?
I was heading to the parking lot to go to my usual morning cafe, but my car wasn’t where I normally parked it.
I looked around.
Oh, right. I left it in the parking lot by the shops yesterday.
As I walked over, I looked at the restaurant signs lining both sides of the road.
There are so many restaurants around here.
The day before, my daughter and I had gone to a tonkatsu restaurant for lunch. It was our first time there.
My daughter ordered a set with udon and pork tenderloin tonkatsu, and I had the pork loin tonkatsu.
“When I went to Japan with Dad two years ago, we saw locals lined up outside a tonkatsu restaurant, so we got curious and joined the line. They really did start cooking only after we ordered,” I said.
We waited about thirty minutes for our food after ordering.
Both tonkatsu dishes had thick cuts of pork that were still a little pink in the middle.
My daughter took a photo before she started eating.
Two young women at the table next to us had left some of their tonkatsu. We left some too.
“I don’t think I like this very much. I can understand the broth on the side being lukewarm, but the tonkatsu isn’t juicy, and it isn’t warm either.”
“Yeah. The udon was good, though.”
“Was the udon at the train station better, or was this one better?”
“The train station.”
We both laughed.
As we walked toward the car parked along the street, my stomach started to feel uncomfortable. While my daughter got an iced Americano to go, I bought a bottle of water at a convenience store and took some digestive enzymes I had in my bag.
Instead of driving into our apartment parking lot, I parked by the shops along the street and went straight to the restroom next door.
“I had diarrhea.”
My daughter laughed.
“I thought you might. You were gone for a while. I thought my Americano would help me digest the food, but it didn’t.”
When we got home, she didn’t feel good either and took some digestive enzymes.
“I guess that kind of food just doesn’t agree with us.”
We laughed again.
Maybe because my stomach was upset, I didn’t feel nearly as good as I had that morning. I went to bed early, before ten. My daughter usually goes to sleep before I do, but that night I was the first one asleep.
And this morning, I was the first one awake.
I boiled some eggs for my husband, sliced an apple, and left them on the table. Then I went to a cafe near home. I had a hot Americano and spent two hours finishing an essay. I felt good.
Making Gomguk Again
On my way home, I stopped at a butcher shop and bought only about 400 grams of beef brisket. I had gotten a text saying the beef bones I’d ordered a few days earlier would be delivered that morning.
I didn’t really like the ones I bought last time. Let’s see how these turn out.
They were from an organic co-op that sells them online. I didn’t feel like freezing them again. It seemed better to cook them right away and have gomguk, Korean beef bone soup, for lunch.
When I got home, I opened the balcony windows wide and let in the outside air after having them closed all night.
“Brr, it’s cold.”
My daughter was drinking the iced Americano I’d brought home for her.
Until last week, I still preferred wearing short sleeves during the day, but somehow the air had already turned chilly.
“You’re drinking an iced Americano.”
I laughed and closed the windows again. I left only the bedroom balcony window open to let in some fresh air.
Oh, there aren’t that many bones.
The bag of bones had been delivered outside the door while I was at the cafe. I opened it and soaked the bones under running water for only about ten minutes. Then I put them straight into my big stockpot with a moderate amount of water and half the brisket and started boiling everything on the gas stove.
There were 1.8 kilograms of bones, less than half the amount I’d bought from the butcher shop near home before, but they had cost more than twice as much.
In the middle of summer, I had filled the stockpot with beef bones and some extra bones the butcher had given me, and kept it boiling hard. Without air conditioning, the whole house got hot.
Today, I didn’t add any extra bones, and I had fewer beef bones to begin with. With just enough water, the pot was only about half full.
I was going to make mixed-grain rice in the rice cooker, but then I just used white rice.
The rice was still cooking when I tasted the broth. To my surprise, it was already good.
I sliced some green onion and the cooked brisket. My husband wandered over, took a look, and smiled.
“You made gomguk because you wanted some yourself.”
Then he went back down to the apartment courtyard.
I took out some napa cabbage kimchi I’d made with just a few ingredients before Chuseok and cut some up. I put as much rice as I wanted into a large bowl, ladled in some broth from the gently simmering pot, added green onion and brisket, and seasoned it with a little salt.
Then I sat down at the sofa table and ate by myself.
Oh, this tastes even better because I wanted it.
My daughter came out of her room.
“I want some.”
I got up, ladled some soup into a bowl for her, and we sat together at the dining table.
“The broth is so clear. It’s good.”
She finished every drop and wiped the sweat from her forehead.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you finish all the broth before.”
“It’s really good.”
I wanted to boil the bones again and get it all done that day.
After eating, I poured the remaining broth into the large pot I normally use for soup, added fresh water to the stockpot, and brought it to a rolling boil again.
I tasted it.
“This is really good. I like it better without the extra bones.”
“Yeah. It tastes better without them,” my daughter said.
“I think I’ll have it with rice for breakfast. Maybe eating breakfast would be good. Then I won’t end up eating out so often.”
As I sat at the sofa table writing this, I added water to the stockpot for a third time and let it boil hard.
Oh, it’s cool enough now that I can keep this boiling without heating up the whole house.
My husband hadn’t gone out for work that day. Maybe he didn’t have any lunch plans. It was already past one in the afternoon, but he was still out in the apartment courtyard and hadn’t come in for lunch.
Maybe he’s not that interested anymore. I kept giving him gomguk when he seemed low on energy during the summer. Haha.
I got up from the sofa table and went to the kitchen to taste the third batch of broth.
Oh, I got carried away with my writing and let the broth boil down quite a bit.
The broth had turned milky white. I poured it into the soup pot with the other broth, added water to the stockpot one last time, and put in the rest of the brisket.
Once I mixed all the batches together, the soup pot was about two-thirds full. This amount of brisket seemed like plenty too. I could throw away the bones today, wash the stockpot, put it away, and be done.
“I still haven’t had lunch.”
I heard my husband come in, and I got up from the sofa table.
I heated the gomguk I’d collected in the soup pot, ladled out a portion without much fat, and gave it to him with plenty of kimchi. Then I moved my laptop to the desk in the bedroom.
Through the open door, I could hear him eating at the dining table, his spoon clinking against the bowl.
Gomguk the Next Morning
The next morning, I came home after spending two hours at the cafe. My husband had gone out for a lunch appointment.
I took the soup out of the fridge and skimmed off the fat that had hardened on top.
Then I poured just enough for my daughter and me into a small pot, heated it up, and we had it for a late breakfast.
The broth was clear and light, and it felt good on my stomach. My daughter finished every drop again.
Oh, this is nice. I can make it whenever I feel like it.
