Yum Yum Rice Bowls with Knockoff Yumm Sauce

Something unexpected this week: I was invited to speak at a Korean adoptee meetup group in Seattle. Sujin connected me — she knows the organizer, a woman named Helen who was adopted from Korea to a family in Tacoma in the '80s. The meetup is a monthly gathering of adult Korean adoptees who share experiences, eat Korean food (always), and support each other through the particular challenges of transracial adoption. Helen asked if I'd share my Korea trip story.

I said yes. Then I spent three days panicking about what to say. Speaking to a room of Korean adoptees about my Korea trip is different from speaking to Daniel or Dr. Yoon or Karen. These are people who understand the specific weight of what I'm describing — the invisibility in Seoul, the crying over pancakes, the adoption agency neighborhood — because they carry the same weight. They don't need explanations. They need recognition. They need me to say: you are not alone in this, I felt it too, the food and the tears and the belonging are real.

The meetup was Thursday evening at a community center in the Central District. Fifteen people, mostly in their twenties and thirties, Korean faces raised by American families. Helen introduced me and I spoke for twenty minutes about the Korea trip — the market, the jjigae, the invisibility, the tears — and the room was so quiet I could hear people breathing. When I finished, a woman named Claire said, "I've been wanting to go to Korea for ten years and I've been too scared. You just made me less scared." Another woman, Yuna, said, "The bindaetteok. I ate one in Gwangjang Market and I cried too. Same stall, I think. The grandmother." We compared notes. Same grandmother. Same pancake. Same tears. The Korean adoptee experience is universal in its specifics: we all cry over the same food in the same market because the food reaches the same wound.

I exchanged numbers with five people. Five new Korean adoptee connections. Five people who understand the thing I've been carrying since I was old enough to notice my face didn't match my family's. The community Dr. Yoon prescribed is growing — not just Korean people but Korean adoptees specifically, people who are doing the same reclamation work, building the same bridges, making the same kimchi with the same stained hands.

I made budae jjigae for the meetup — army stew, the fusion dish, because nothing says "Korean adoptees in America" like a stew that combines Korean and American ingredients into something neither wholly Korean nor wholly American but entirely its own thing. The irony was intentional. Claire got it immediately: "We're the budae jjigae," she said. "Made from two cultures, neither one fully, something new." I said, "Yes. And we're delicious." Everyone laughed. The laughter was the sound of belonging.

Saturday: Bellevue. I told Karen about the meetup. She was quiet, then said, "I'm glad you found people who understand." The sentence was simple and enormous. Karen acknowledging that there are things about my experience that she can't understand, that other people can, and that her love is big enough to include people who see parts of me she can't see. That's growth. Karen's growth. Seventy years old and growing, learning, expanding. The table gets bigger. The family gets wider. The love doesn't divide — it multiplies. Karen taught me that, through pot roast and patience, long before I knew it was a lesson.

I brought budae jjigae to the meetup because it said everything I needed to say without words — but on the nights I want that same spirit of layering, building, combining things that weren’t originally meant to go together into something that ends up better than the sum of its parts, I make these rice bowls. The Yumm sauce is the thing: creamy, herby, a little unexpected, and entirely its own creation, which feels right. Claire said we’re the budae jjigae, and I think we’re these bowls too — everyone brings something to the table, and when it all lands together, it’s nourishing in a way that goes beyond the recipe.

Prep Time: 20 min | Cook Time: 20 min | Total Time: 40 min | Servings: 4

Ingredients

Knockoff Yumm Sauce
1 (15 oz) can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1/4 cup almond butter (or 1/3 cup whole raw almonds)
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice (about 2 lemons)
1/4 cup olive oil
2 tablespoons nutritional yeast
2 cloves garlic
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1/4 teaspoon curry powder
1/4 teaspoon salt, plus more to taste
1/3 to 1/2 cup water, to thin
Rice Bowls
2 cups long-grain white rice (or brown rice)
1 (15 oz) can black beans, drained, rinsed, and warmed
1 cup frozen or canned corn, warmed
1 cup fresh salsa or pico de gallo
1 avocado, sliced
1 cup shredded Monterey Jack or cheddar cheese
1/4 cup fresh cilantro, roughly chopped
1 lime, cut into wedges
Sour cream, for serving (optional)

Instructions

Cook the rice. Prepare rice according to package directions. For white rice, combine 2 cups rice with 3 and 3/4 cups water and a pinch of salt in a medium saucepan. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to low, cover, and cook 18 minutes. Remove from heat and let steam, covered, for 5 minutes. Fluff with a fork.
Make the Yumm sauce. Add chickpeas, almond butter, lemon juice, olive oil, nutritional yeast, garlic, oregano, curry powder, and salt to a blender or food processor. Blend until very smooth, adding water a few tablespoons at a time until the sauce reaches a pourable, creamy consistency. Taste and adjust salt and lemon as needed. The sauce should be bright, savory, and herbaceous.
Warm the beans and corn. Heat black beans and corn together in a small saucepan over medium-low heat with a pinch of salt, stirring occasionally, until warmed through, about 4–5 minutes. Alternatively, microwave in a covered bowl for 90 seconds.
Assemble the bowls. Divide cooked rice evenly among four bowls. Top each with a portion of warm black beans, corn, salsa, and sliced avocado. Sprinkle shredded cheese over each bowl while the rice and beans are still warm so it softens slightly.
Sauce and finish. Spoon a generous amount of Yumm sauce over each assembled bowl — 3 to 4 tablespoons per serving, or more to taste. Scatter fresh cilantro on top, add a squeeze of lime, and serve immediately with sour cream on the side if desired.
Serve family-style (optional). For a communal meal, set out all the toppings and sauce in the center of the table and let everyone build their own bowl. Extra Yumm sauce keeps in an airtight jar in the refrigerator for up to one week.

Nutrition (per serving)

Yum Yum Rice Bowls with Knockoff Yumm Sauce — The Meal That Holds a Community Together