2.27 Interview with Donghyuk Shin
Donghyuk moved in Pittsburgh last summer with his wife a year after they had got married. Food is always at the center of their relationship. Dining out was major part in their dating. When he worked in Korea, his wife take the role of preparing meals or they dined out usually. But after moving here, he started to learn about cooking. This time is his first moment living away from his family and friends as well.
Daily Communication & Food Practices
For everyday setting, they corresponds several text message a day and sometimes they have a short call. It happens mainly around late afternoon, and is about logistic stuff; when come home and what to eat for dinner. If decide to cook something and need more ingredients, they almost always meet and shop together at grocery stores. Although there is no shopping list, they have a must-have food list, such as milk, egg, onions, and at list one kind of fruit. For new things, they make consensus on whether buying it or not.
One of them takes responsibility for breakfast. If he prepares the meal, then his wife does dishes. It is usually leftover from last day or very simple like milk and cereal. He is the one who pack salad for her lunch box. He enjoys the feeling that he is taking care of her and wants she feel thanks for him. He eats lunch alone at home but doesn’t mind being alone. He doesn’t cook but eats some fruits or salad, while watching a couple of short video clips on Youtube.
Communication in Distance
When they are away each other for several days for some reasons, he share pictures of what we ate and what we found interesting. Especially delicious food or restaurant which he want to eat or go together later on. Beside of that, he takes food photos a lot with no reason but never visits them again intentionally. However, sometimes food memories, such as eating together and having a good time, come to mind all of sudden and make him reminisce.
Learning Cooking
After moving in Pittsburgh, he started to learn cooking since he had relatively more time than before. For first time learner, cooking is difficult even with recipe. Time is needed to be able to multitasking. He doesn’t know how to coordinate things simultaneously. For example, when he start boil pasta and while he is making source. He thought that if it is possible to get virtually training before actual cooking, it would be great.
When he cook alone, he asks his wife about cooking, such as above-mentioned procedure or how much to put some ingredients, because he thinks that she knows it. There are too many things online. He doesn’t know which one is reliable and don’t want to look at all those info.
Whenever he did a great job, he sent picture of food to his mother or wife to to show off!
Cooking for Others
Although he is getting better at cooking, cooking for self is troublesome still for him. He doesn’t want to put too much effort on food for myself; it’s annoying that food will soon disappears, whereas co-cooking doesn’t feel in such way since conversation going on back and forth between each other.
When he presents food he cooked for others, he expects that the one likes the dish and enjoys the taste. Otherwise, he feels bad and disappointed. So He also tries his best to eat well and say “delicious!” when others cook for him. One anecdote: when we were dating, he cooked a soup himself and found it tasted good. At that time his wife was working. He brought semi-cooked soup and uncooked noodle with pot to her workplace so that she can finish the cooking easily and have warm soup with unswollen noodle. He hoped that it showed his caring not only his wife but also her co-workers!
Virtual Drinking with a Friend in Distance
Once he drank with his friend living in Seoul. He felt it was great, felt like actually drinking together in person. But He would not eat in that way because alcohol is something ease conversation for them, which food is not.
