Amanda came home to us from South Korea just before her second birthday. It also happened to be the week before Easter, and we remember fondly how that first Easter of hers she refused all chocolate, jelly beans and candy, looking at us like we were crazy when we offered them to her.

Instead, she happily ate her white rice and Kimchi (a spicy cabbage dish served very often in Korea) that we kept prepared for her, while her siblings enjoyed their sweets.

As we knew she would, she got to liking American food fairly quickly (including sweets!!!), although rice and Kimchi were always favorites. Josh would buy the big jars of Kimchi at the grocery store, and with a pair of chopsticks, sit down with Amanda and the two of them would eat the whole thing. Just the smell of it was enough to send the other kids running, but Amanda was in heaven.

We hadn’t bought Kimchi for awhile, but last week Josh brought home a jar. He pulled out the chopsticks and called Amanda (who is now 5 ½) into the kitchen. He asked her if she remembered it and she said yes. He told her what it was called and that it was from Korea and that she used to eat it every day. He asked her if she wanted some and she said yes.

He had her smell it first, and her next “yes” didn’t come with quite as much conviction, but she still said she wanted to try it.

Josh gave her a small bite, and as we waited to see what her reaction would be, her eyes filled with tears. Josh asked her if she liked it and she shook her head “no” vigorously. He asked her if she wanted to spit it out and she nodded yes pitifully. She spit it out, got a drink of water and ran off to play.

Shane looked at me and said, “Well, I guess she has American taste buds now!”

I have to admit I was a little sad that she didn’t like it, as I felt like it was a little bit of her “Korean-ness” that had disappeared. But she does still love rice more than just about anything, and she doctors up everything from pasta to pizza with hot sauce, so I have hope that maybe when she is older she will enjoy Kimchi again.

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