Asian Chicken Wings

I submitted it. Wednesday, February 10th. James drove me to the post office on Capitol Hill to mail the DNA kit — cheek swab, sealed in the prepaid envelope, paperwork folded inside. The online application I'd already submitted with a click that felt nothing like enough for what it was. But the DNA kit needed to go by mail, physical and real, my cells in a tube in an envelope in a mailbox. James parked and I sat in the passenger seat holding the envelope and he didn't rush me. Three minutes. Five. I was holding twenty-seven years of questions in a padded mailer. Then I got out, walked to the blue mailbox on the corner of Broadway and Pike, and dropped it in. The metal mouth closed. The sound it made was soft and final, like a door clicking shut behind you in a house you've already decided to enter.

I didn't sleep that night. I lay in bed listening to James breathe and the rain and the heating system and the city and my own pulse, and I thought: somewhere a woman named Jisoo exists and in four to six months she might know I'm looking for her, or she might not, or the match might not work, or she might not want to be found, or she might be dead, or she might be alive and waiting the way I've been waiting, and none of those possibilities were bearable and all of them were true at once. I got up at three AM and made chamoe-hwachae — Korean melon punch, sweet and cold, a summer drink in the dead of February because I needed something bright. I drank it standing at the counter in the dark, the melon balls bobbing like small green planets, and it was absurd and perfect.

Thursday Dr. Yoon and I talked about what comes next. She said the waiting would be hard. She said I might feel regret, relief, terror, boredom, all of it cycling. She said, "The bravest thing you've ever done is not the submission. It's the waiting." I told her waiting is what adoptees do. We wait to be chosen. We wait to belong. We wait for someone to explain why. She nodded and said, "This time you chose the wait. That's different." It is different. It's mine.

Saturday James made his beef noodle soup because I needed to not cook for once, to just sit and receive and eat. The broth was perfect — star anise and soy, the beef tender, the noodles hand-pulled and uneven. I ate two bowls. I was so tired. I went to bed at eight-thirty and slept twelve hours and woke up feeling like I'd set something down that I'd been carrying since I was three days old.

I didn’t cook that Saturday — James did — and for the first time in as long as I can remember, I just let someone take care of me. That feeling of sitting down, hands empty, bowl full, is what these Asian chicken wings bring back every time I make them: the soy and ginger and sesame, the sticky glaze, the warmth that moves through you slowly. They’re not his beef noodle soup, but they carry the same spirit — food that says I see how tired you are, sit down. After a week of mailing parts of myself into the unknown, that’s exactly the kind of recipe I reach for.

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 45 min | Total Time: 1 hr | Servings: 4

Ingredients

2 lbs chicken wings, tips removed, split at joints
1/4 cup soy sauce
2 tablespoons honey
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1 tablespoon rice vinegar
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon fresh ginger, grated
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes (optional)
1 tablespoon cornstarch
2 tablespoons water
2 green onions, thinly sliced, for garnish
1 tablespoon sesame seeds, for garnish

Instructions

Preheat and prep. Preheat your oven to 400°F. Line a large baking sheet with foil and place a wire rack on top. Pat the chicken wings dry with paper towels and arrange them in a single layer on the rack.
Bake the wings. Bake for 40–45 minutes, flipping once halfway through, until the skin is golden and crisp at the edges.
Make the glaze. While the wings bake, whisk together soy sauce, honey, sesame oil, rice vinegar, garlic, ginger, and red pepper flakes in a small saucepan over medium heat. In a small bowl, stir cornstarch and water together until smooth, then whisk into the sauce. Cook, stirring, for 2–3 minutes until the glaze thickens and coats the back of a spoon.
Glaze and finish. Remove wings from the oven and toss them in a large bowl with the warm glaze until every piece is well coated. Return to the rack and bake for an additional 5 minutes to set the glaze.
Garnish and serve. Transfer to a platter, scatter green onions and sesame seeds over the top, and serve immediately.

Nutrition (per serving)

Asian Chicken Wings — The Night I Finally Let Someone Feed Me