Skip to content

Category: Kubo Rich Life

The Magic of Home Cooking

Ingredients to Beef Bourguignon.

**WARNING: Plenty of food pictures at the bottom of the page. Don’t look unless you want to get hungry.**

I was roughly 8 years old when I finally made my dad teach me how to cook. Before then, I spent a lot of time in our kitchen watching him as he prepared our meals. In fact, most of the time, I stood right by him beside our gas powered stove as he mixed the pot or the pan full of ingredients. The whole process was incredible. He took these things called vegetables that were largely grown from the Earth’s nutritious soil and from the free energy of the Sun. He took some piece of meat that was raised by the people at the province and butchered by some butcher at the butcher shop. He would combine them in a pot or in a pan (depending on what dish he was making) with some spices and other natural flavorings. He would put them over the hot stove, mix them every once in a while, taste them so that the flavoring could be corrected, and after an hour or so of tending them the result was always this delicious home cooked meal for our family to enjoy. It was magic.

Luck and Action

My favorite spot in Paris. The owner was extremely nice to us. He even made me iced tea (not on the menu).

When I was in my early 20s I believed in many things that were not true. I thought the amount of money someone earned was in proportion to how hard they worked. And since earning a good income is associated with having a pretty comfortable life, I thought the people who were struggling just weren’t working hard enough. I also believed, at the time, that we reward the most money to people in careers that gave back to society the most. It seemed that the engineering and the medical fields gave the highest salaries to people. Thus any other endeavor (like the arts, the pure sciences, or the public services) was ipso facto suspect, unless it had just enough graphs or maths that the average person found difficult to comprehend, like statistics or physics. I also thought we all had the same opportunities in life. So if you were not making at least $50,000 a year past your 20s then it must have been your fault. You simply did something wrong. The result was that I believed the good comfortable life I had achieved thus far was simply due to my own actions. But I realized that this is simply not true.

A True Friend I Want to Keep, Forever

A nice homemade dinner with Kubo Queen.

Here is the thing about me — I don’t really have many friends. I do know quite a lot of people and they’re all quite nice, but, for me, it takes much more than knowing who someone is to consider them a good friend. I have very high standards when it comes to friendships. In fact, when it comes down to it, Kubo Queen is the only one who has always been a true friend to me. A friend who I can truly depend on, who I can admit my flaws to, who I’m willing to make sacrifices for, and who pushes me to be a better person. I came to the realization a long time ago that she is pretty much the only one I really need.

Cars — Optional

Pike’s Place Market is an iconic tourist stop in Seattle, yet the pedestrian visitors still have to dodge traffic around it.

Why do Americans drive their cars everywhere? Unfortunately, many areas in our country are built for them, not built for the comfort of people. Large parts of cities are zoned for single-family houses, for instance, meaning businesses and transit hubs probably aren’t within walking distance of home. When businesses are within walking distance, the way there is likely to be along a busy road full of high-speed cars, and the store is probably surrounded by a large parking lot. To make matters worse, many motorists aren’t even looking out for pedestrians. I’ve been cut off while in the crosswalk more than once. Trying to bike anywhere in these types of cities carries similar inconvenience and risk.