I grew up as a city girl. I loved fashion. I worked in the corporate world and later found myself in the movie industry. I was surrounded by deadlines, people, movement — always moving onto the next thing.
If someone had told me years ago that I would one day be standing in gumboots, checking on vegetables, making kimchi, fermenting soy sauce for years, and worrying whether rain would come this week, I would have laughed.
Because I knew absolutely nothing.
I didn't grow up learning how to farm. I didn't inherit land. I wasn't taught how to cook from a professional kitchen, and nobody handed me a guide on fermentation.
Everything I know today — growing, cooking, fermenting — I learned through curiosity, mistakes, stubbornness, and a lot of failure.
Plants died.
Recipes failed.
Ferments went wrong.
There were moments I questioned myself.
But somewhere along the way, I noticed something changing.
The girl who once worried about meetings and schedules started becoming excited about the first yuzu of the season, whether the bees were happy, and if the Jerusalem artichokes were ready beneath the soil.
House of Mi-Rin wasn't only about building a place.
Without realising it, I was rebuilding myself too.
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