Whenever I go home my mom makes a huge vat of kimchi fried rice and leaves a firm note: ERIC, EAT. I've seen her cook it a thousand times, yet I don't feel that mine has ever come out like hers. She once said that the secret to her kimchi fried rice is, well, the kimchi. And though I'm able to recreate some version of her spicy-briny cabbage from taste memory, my kimchi will never be her kimchi, and in turn neither will my kimchi fried rice ever be her kimchi fried rice. Still, here it is: my best effort at Korean ambrosia, which, when you really look at it, isn't much at all. Just a cheap way to use up leftover rice with this and that from the pantry. A proper holdover comfort of my childhood, this is all I want to eat at the end of a rough week—proper mom food.

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