Sometimes you get lucky and get invited to meals just a select few know about. By people like Edward Lee, chef-owner at 610 Magnolia.
Who’s got more influential people to be nice to than me.
I suppose he thought I’d like to meet his friend, novelist Chang-Rae Lee and sit down to a meal the two men prepared just for the fun of it.
He was right. I would. And did. And I’m here to tell you to reinforce the point of my first sentence: sometimes you get lucky.
The reason why Lee the novelist was coming through Louisville was to promote his latest book, “The Surrendered.”
He and Lee the chef had met in Washington, D.C., last year at an event for Korean-American professionals, and they discovered a shared love of words and food (Lee the chef has a bachelor’s in literature from New York University, while Lee the novelist teaches it at Princeton University).
Last Sunday and Monday nights, they cooked for some small groups, a mix of both men’s fans.
Lee the novelist told me he cooks with his wife at home some six nights a week. I told him that even with my professional cooking background I found Korean food challenging. He swore it isn’t.
“Oh, so many people think cooking Korean food is difficult,” said he said, sunnily. His disposition, I should add, bore no trace of the darkness present in “The Surrendered,” a story that visits the horrors of the Korean War. “Sure, there can be a lot of cutting and preparation, but when it’s time to cook, it’s kind of like, woosh! And it all comes together quickly.”
Remember that: “Woosh!” That’s how it’s supposed to happen—at his house, not mine. His modesty is genuine.
Sunday night’s meal, according to him at least, didn’t just “woosh” together, however.
Apologetically he announced its delayed arrival — not that anyone seemed to be keeping time — “due to a long Saturday night of drinking bourbon with Edward.” Everyone smiled in empathetic forgiveness, though none were offended: they were at 610 Magnolia for heaven’s sake. Got a better place to be on a Sunday night?
Everything was served family style, something I love because it’s impossible to not make friends of complete strangers at your table when you have to pass plates. The evening’s lineup—preset by Lee and Lee—included:
- A poke (pronounced “po-keh,” a Hawaiian dish) of sliced raw scallops and striped bass, tossed in lightly sweet and gingery vinaigrette sharpened by finely diced chiles and dots of kimchee. This dish truly made me feel sorry for a vegan at our table—and envious of a tablemate who got her unclaimed portion before I did.
- Lettuce wraps made from romaine, raw oyster and fried pork belly, a dish Lee called “pretty common bar food in Korea.” Beats the hell out of pickled eggs and pretzels served in American bars, don’t you think?
- A salad of red-veined sorrel, goat cheese (you’re a genius, Judy Schad), blood orange sections, roasted, marinated beet cubes and a tangy vinaigrette. Here’s where the vegan—a sweet lady, not a snoot—had a wholly forgivable chance to tack slightly off course to vegetarianism, but being a woman of principles, she didn’t. It’s also where I didn’t let one of my tablemates get her portion. If the meal would have begun and ended here, I would have been fine.
- A stir-fry of lamb and vegetables in a perfect brown sauce was superb on its own, but everyone at the table was taken by the addition of Korean rice cakes called tteok. They were clean, chewy, toothsome and, interestingly, flavorless like tapioca pearls in bubble tea. It was one of the most curious, but pleasurable textures I’ve experienced in years. If you ever see it, get it.
- Dessert was a summer teaser: a clear, chilled cantaloupe broth garnished with a dollop of creamy panna cotta, a few fresh raspberries and bits of fresh basil. Who else in town but Edward Lee would toss out something like that for dessert—and pull it off in March?
