I spent 6.5 hours slow roasting a pork shoulder in preparation for bo ssam, or Korean-style slow roasted pork shoulder, to be torn up and served with ssamjang (homemade Korean barbecue paste), ginger scallion sauce, rice, and lettuce. It actually wasn’t much work, as the oven does the cooking. The one thing that took the most time were the ginger scallion sauce since I had to finely mince a decent amount of scallions and ginger.

When I was growing up, up until I started eating dinner at my friends’ homes and out at restaurants with my friends’ families, I was exposed to an extremely limited amount of food. Sure, I had a lot of good food — my grandmother and aunt made some of the best (and most laborious) Cantonese dishes, my mom made delicious potstickers, stews, and Vietnamese dishes, and my dad exposed me to different types of meatloaf and biscuits — but they were all in the realm of Cantonese, Vietnamese, or generic American-household foods like spaghetti or mashed potatoes. I had no idea that Thai curry existed; I never knew people ate pasta with sauces that weren’t red. And I definitely would not have known that in many parts of the world and even within China, bread was actually the primary household staple, not rice.

But what I hope is that when we have children that I’ll continue to have the desire and love to experiment with recipes of cultures other than our own. So many people have found it comical that I know how to make Indian food, even making my own curry mixes. Other people laugh when they hear I am making Korean or Turkish dishes. But I think this is important for knowledge and to ensure our future children are exposed to a wide variety of cultures via these cultures’ foods. What better way to learn about and appreciate other cultures than eating their cuisine?

I’m in a number of different Facebook groups, and some of the most active ones are through my college network. We have a Foodies for Wellesley Alums group that I read almost every other day, and I occasionally contribute when I have recipes to recommend or suggestions based on questions that other alums post. One of the questions this week that left me thinking quite a bit was from an alum who is part of a growing family of four, and because her husband will be quitting his job soon, she wants to try to limit their household grocery bill to $100/week. I thought about this and how hard that would be, especially if you want a diet filled with fresh produce, meat, and dairy.

I go to a number of different places to buy our groceries, whether it’s staples like spices and rice, or fresh produce, and what inevitably always drives up the bill are the costs of fresh produce in New York city, whether it’s fruit or vegetables. If I’m buying fish or any type of seafood, that will increase the bill significantly, as well. The only way I’d see achieving this for a family of four in New York would be if you almost exclusively ate canned or frozen produce and kept fish and meat purchases to a minimum.