My Seoul Man

Chapter 24

I tossed AJ two bottles of ice-cold water. And he tossed one of them over to his cousin, Jun, who'd just dumped a batch of honey chicken out of a deep fryer basket.

"You two okay?" I asked, wiping my own sweaty brow. "You'll get a break in a few minutes."

Jun, the elder cousin of the two who'd lent us the truck, smiled and said, "Ego's a little bruised. We never raked it in like this."

I was surprised he still had jokes. Cause they'd been frying chicken and corn dogs—AJ in cap and sunglasses--from the moment Security removed the barricades at both ends of Main Street that morning.

Yep, our "Seoul Food" was the runaway hit of the First Annual Whitman Food Fest. We got all the long timers right away. They were always first in line for big events, given how few there used to be.

I mean, an old timey train with the big smokestack and all just brought out damned near the entire population, kids on shoulders and cameras ready to "witness history" passing by. Hell, a new McDonalds was big news when I was growing up.

So once a few long timers saw those crazy corn dogs, all the rest came swarming at us like those little black ants that get into the house every now and then out our way.

Wasn't what the fancy folk had in mind, of course. They'd used their media connects to brag about all the chichi chefs who'd moved to our little corner of the world.

Local and national media showed up hungry for those happy little "Small town with big names," features they tack on the end of news broadcasts.

Followed the swarm right up to our truck. Stayed in line, too. I mean, we were calling it "Seoul Food," right? To them it sounded like we were selling the kind of exotic street food you see on those Netflix shows.

A TV crew from the ABC affiliate in Phoenix asked if we'd be willing to come down and do one of those little cooking demostrations to show people how to make some corn dogs, too.

And we were red hot on Twitter, Threads, Tiktok and Instagram, too. A lot of people showed up after seeing us online, in fact—the slide and the French fry dog were big hits.

So, we would've been totally fricked if my aunts, uncles and cousins hadn't stepped up. And shout out to AJ's cousins, Jun and Hyung, too.

They'd renewed all their permits and licenses in case they wanted to get back out on the road or set up in front of the store weekends and holidays as the grandparents had suggested more than a few times.

And they signed up to run the kitchen with a little help from me and my fam. Though most of my family members would be back in Ahn's kitchen making that batter and all the sides.

Oh—we had Ronnie and Yoli, too. Those rascals hauled that somen slide down to us in a big truck, talking about, "It's our turn," bless their hearts.

All three of us stayed at Mama Sadie's that week, getting bossed around by Auntie Jennie. She was used to organizing huge outdoor and indoor church events.

She helped me set up a schedule to rotate all the family volunteers from the truck window to the somen room to Ahn's kitchen and back again in groups of three. While the "Seoul brothers," (our new nickname for AJ, Jun and Hyung), helped me learn how to run the truck kitchen.

So, it was me, AJ and Jun frying up that "Hallyu Honey Chicken," (plain, mild and hot) and four kinds of Korean corn dogs while Hyung was up front making "bingsu" and Bennie took orders.

That's this Korean shaved ice thing he studded with all kinds of candy, cookies, fruit and whatever else people chose from the menu. The ice was made of condensed milk that made it like a creamy sorbet—that made the foodies come running.