Destigmatizing the Pantry
A core part of that work is demystifying Korean ingredients for a wider audience. Molinaro acknowledges how intimidating it can be to walk into a Korean grocery store and not recognize what’s on the shelves. Her response: include brand names and explanations, especially for essentials like doenjang (fermented soybean paste).
“I remember my first book, I suppose what I do in my pantry section is, I include brand names because I know how intimidating it is,” she said. Some readers recoiled from the smell of doenjang, but Molinaro sees that as a marker of authenticity: “I really wanted to reply, well, then you know that it’s a good doenjang. It’s supposed to do that. I mean, my house smells like doenjang all the time. And I’ve gotten to a point where I’m like, I’m not going to be ashamed of this. I’m a fucking James Beard award–winning cookbook author. I’m not going to be ashamed of the smells that got me to that point.”
Her pantry section, then, is about more than accessibility—it’s about destigmatizing. “Yeah, your house is going to smell if you use soy sauce, doenjang, even gochugaru. But lean into it, embrace it. These are the smells that are going to make the doenjang chigae…”
A Cooking Philosophy Rooted in Joy
Molinaro’s approach to recipes is disarmingly flexible. “My overriding cooking philosophy is to make it taste the way you want,” she said. If her mother’s kimchi was always salty, hers leans sweet. If her mother’s doenjang chigae was watery, she makes hers thick and hearty. “That’s one of the joys of being an adult,” she added.
For her, joy is central: the joy of preparing, the joy of eating, the joy of flavors that resonate personally. And yes—potatoes play a starring role. “That’s the other thing. I add potatoes to everything because it’s my favorite food in the whole wide world.”
Family Stories, Memory Recipes
The book is rich with family stories that tether technique to memory. One of her favorites comes from her grandmother, who used Sweet’n Low packets stolen from restaurants when making radish kimchi. “She hated the slimy syrup you get when you add sugar to liquid,” Molinaro recalled. The workaround—sugar substitutes—made for better texture and became part of her grandmother’s Korean American cooking identity.
Another deeply personal recipe is oi sobagi (stuffed cucumber kimchi). While it appeared in her first book, the memory remains vivid. Her grandmother used to make it in huge jars weighted with stones from Lake Michigan. “Pulling out one of these pickles…then just stuffing your mouth with it, with a huge hot spoonful of fresh steamed rice—that takes me directly back to my childhood,” Molinaro said.
Dining and Cooking