We Are Open | PJM/OT7 X OC ✔️

Prologue

I turn on the lights and waltz into my shop. My best friend, Madison, enters the shop behind me, ready to get right into work. We are going to start this early morning by getting a head start on making some special character macarons to sell this weekend. Our special character macarons are one of the items that gains us a lot of busines, which is great because they're fun to create with Madison. And, it gives me more time to spend in the bakery.

I love my shop. It's been my pride and joy these days.

About a year ago, Jin and I took a risk and decided to follow our dreams and we opened our own bakery, OMO! Macarons & Milk Tea. We mainly focus on macarons and since we both love milk tea, we made sure to make it the other main part of our menu.

We try to explore different macaron flavors, from crowd favorites like cookies and cream, salted caramel, raspberry and Cinnamon Toast Crunch, to exotic and crazy flavors like Turkish delight and durian. We change up character macaron themes often. We've made characters from Harry Potter, Marvel superheroes, Bob's Burgers, Sailor Moon, My Hero Academia, Sanrio, Mine Craft, Super Mario, Squid Games, Stranger Things, and so on.

Jin, the milk bubble tea aficionado, makes sure our menu has an assortment of milk teas for our patrons to choose from. The man is all about his milk teas. But, he also loves to experiment with wild flavors for our macarons.

Jin's my kindred spirit when it comes to our love for cooking.

My own love for cooking and baking started when I was a child. My grandmother was the one who taught me all sorts of recipes, mainly baked goods. Whenever she would come to visit, she would always bring ingredients knowing that I would beg her to teach me how to make something. We would bake macarons, chocolate chip cookies, snickerdoodles, different types of pies, banana nut bread and the list goes on.

My grandmother emigrated to the US with my grandfather, from Daegu, South Korea. So, of course my grandmother made sure I knew how to cook and prepare all sorts of Korean dishes. Thanks to her, I can make gimbap, tteokguk, japchae, sundubu jjigae, samgyetang, gamjatang, and haemul pajeon- just to name a few dishes.

When I was midway through college, and voiced to both my grandmother and my mom how I wanted to go into the culinary arts, they both supported me wholeheartedly. My grandmother knew my passion for cooking so she couldn't argue with my decision. My dad, however, believed I should pick something more sensible, so to appease him, I minored in business, which ended up paying off when I started my bakery.

My dad wasn't really in the picture when I was growing up. He did provide child support and even helped with my college fund which is admirable and I'm grateful for.

While I lived with my mom and siblings in Seattle, Washington, my dad lived in Eugene, Oregon. He would try to visit once in a while for birthdays or major holidays, but it was rare. I usually would just talk to him on the phone at least once a month. It was his lackluster way of keeping in touch. But, at least he did try to be in my life, unlike my half-brother's dad, who disappeared from his life.

My parents divorced when I was six. That would make my sister, Olivia, three, and my half-brother, Mark, twelve-years old. Obviously, Olivia doesn't remember much about our dad leaving, but I remember the day when my dad packed his belongings and left. I cried out to him, confused as to why he was leaving us. He told me he loved me with all his heart and that he will always be my dad, but that he was moving to Oregon claiming there was a job opportunity he couldn't turn down. But, let's face it- he just didn't want to admit to me, his six-year old daughter, that he no longer loved my mom.