If you have my cookbook, you already know this story, but forgive me for sharing it again. It’s just that every time I celebrate New Year’s (today is Lunar New Year’s or Seollal (Omma calls it the former)), I can think of little else. And every time I turn this story over in my head, it’s like discovering a new crevice in a stone I carry around in my pocket, a new crater I missed the year before. For years, I thought the lesson was: “love isn’t enough.” And you’ve probably heard me say that many times. Because that was what I yelled at my parents that day, over and over: “love is all that matters.” But, love is NOT all that matters. Respect. Trust. Safety. You can love someone who is unable to provide those things to you and if you do, love will not save you. But this year, instead of focusing on the parts of this story I was there for, I imagined those parts I didn’t get to see. The many conversations my parents must have had that ultimately led them to write me. My mother at the sh...