My Seoul Man

Chapter 41

The reporter held up a tanghulu skewer with girlish glee and said, "So, now...this one's kinda spicy, right?"

And as the camera zoomed in for a juicy bit of food porn, I tried to push that horrific headline out of my head and give them one of AJ's impenetrable "media mask" smiles. While also trying not to imagine him being cop-marched into some courthouse all handcuffed and humiliated...

"Little bit o' green chili in the syrup," I heard myself say. "The mildest kind."

She slid the skewer into her mouth, pulled it back out minus the top strawberry and did the whole "foodgasm" moan thing that had become her trademark on morning TV.

And after she'd given the viewers that moment they'd been waiting for, she gushed, "Oh, no wonder all the kids were fighting over this! And there are sour ones, too, right?"

That childlike enthusiasm helped me perk up some, too.

"It's like those Mexican candies we like so much out this way," I said. "Sweet, sour, salty. Friend of ours wants us to try prickly pear next."

"Well, we've been sneaking off to get little treats from your truck all day long. And every single thing has been so unique! It's beautiful, too--that mural is a work of art!"

I dove into that topic with real emotion. Ronnie deserved the praise and I was thrilled to have a chance to introduce him to the audience of a network morning show that went 'way back to when TV was first invented almost.

And via the young Black woman, "Belle" Bondurant, who'd made history as the first person of color to host that show. She'd moved up after spending a couple of years doing "human interest" stories, mostly. You know, like asking 100-year-old elders to tell us how they managed to live so long or getting food budget tips from a single mother with 5 kids and a minimum wage job.

She gave me a killer Miss America grin and said, "So, it's all about melding cultures, right? All the cultures out here in the Southwest."

And I went into the little spiel we'd come up with when the media started circling around us even back in Whitman. True story. Just...with a big hole in the middle where AJ should've been.

"My mother's diner was right next to a Korean grocery store for decades," I said. "She bought all her produce from them and over time they got kinda fond of each other's food. And so did I."

"The American melting pot in full effect," she gushed. "The way we wish it would work, anyway."

"Well, it's a tiny little country town where everybody's just making the best of what little they've got. So, we mix a little o' this and a little o' that--necessity really is the mother of invention, I guess."

She said, "Well, you've reinvented the whole concept of soul food." And then she turned to the camera, took a big bite out of one of our crazy corn dogs, and said, mouth still full, "This is Seoul Food, y'all! S-E-O-U-L. Website down below there on the screen. Be lookin' out!"

They kept the camera on her standing there savoring that last bite for a few seconds, and then her crew leapt into action, rushing off to pester someone else.

But she lingered, nodding. "I need to get you on a cooking segment sometime soon. You could get to be a regular, actually--that would be so fun!"

She was a little bit too cute for me. The farthest thing from the stereotypical "angry Black woman" the network could get. And yet she'd undercut that melting pot comment on the sly, too.

So, I was kind of intrigued. And excited that she was so excited but...well, it would've been amazing to have AJ on that cooking segment, too.

But the crazy shit going on back in Korea...