A Failed Lunch, Pumpkin Soup, and Ratatouille

Since my child is on school holiday, I took this week off work too. With a little more time than usual, I've been trying out new dishes and making some of my child's favorites. For lunch today, I made one-pan jjajang spaghetti. Apparently, it's been quite popular in Korea lately, but mine was a failure. It honestly didn't taste good. We sprinkled plenty of gochugaru (Korean chili flakes) over it and ate it with danmuji (pickled yellow radish), almost as though we were eating ssam. I should have stuck with my own jjajang sauce recipe... For dinner, I made Hokkaido pumpkin soup. I'd originally considered making Korean pumpkin porridge, but decided on soup instead. This time, it turned out well. We also had homemade Korean-style sandwich bread toasted in butter. My child ate eight slices! I'd cut the loaf I baked yesterday into thick slices and toasted them in butter. Eight slices weren't enough, so I ended up making more. I'd call that a successful dinner. But something unexpected happened while we were eating the soup. My child suddenly started talking about the movie Ratatouille. I wondered what had brought it to mind. We ended up looking at the menu of a restaurant in Paris that we'd been discussing in connection with the film. We talked for quite a while, wondering whether we might have passed it during our recent trip to Paris without even noticing. Perhaps my child was thinking of that scene in Ratatouille where a familiar taste brings back memories of a mother's cooking. I don't really know, but it was a lovely little conversation to have over dinner.