For as long as I can remember, I wanted to be a chef, which is interesting because I am a terrible cook. I can follow a recipe easily enough, but attempting to create something new and experimenting with recipes usually led, and continues to lead, to disaster.

I was raised on Catalpa and Francisco in Chicago’s Albany Park. You can find my childhood home wedged between the Korean-American Chamber of Commerce and the Telshe Yeshiva Chicago, just next to Devon Ave.’s Desi Corridor.

“AARGH,” I heard him yell. I was in the midst of a 45-mile backpacking trip in the rural Appalachian Mountains when I heard Zach, one of my 15-year-old campers, call from a distance. Zach had been chopping wood for the campfire and inadvertently wedged the ax into his right foot.