Who am I? You can call me Ari Yori or Yujin.

Where am I from? Well, this is a slightly complicated question. I was born in Korea with Korean roots but raised in Canada and now living in Germany.  I used to work as a Registered Nurse at Mount Sinai hospital in downtown Toronto and I’m now working as a Project Manager in a small company in Germany. 

Why do I live in Germany? It’s quite simple really, I scored a sweet German guy in my Junior year of University and fast forward 4 years later, I married him, wrapped my nursing career, and packed up my bags to Germany. Crazy, I know… Oh believe me, transitioning to this new country, culture, job, career, and language all at once with no friends and without my family was hard. It really tested the limits of my sanity. As you can see, my life is pretty much all over the place. Too many times I felt lost and pondered for a sense of identity and meaning of my life. 

I live in Stuttgart, Germany. Stuttgart is a cozy charming city but unfortunately, it does not have a big food scene like Seoul or Toronto. The first few weeks of living in Germany, I would get these cravings for Korean food but was unable to find any decent Korean restaurants in Stuttgart. So, I watched my first Youtube cooking tutorial one day and was stunned of how good and easy it was to make it at home.  

As I travelled more, I expanded my palette for different types of tastes and its food culture. I wanted to make it all in my kitchen! I discovered joy in creating food, experimenting and sharing it with others became very meaningful and a passion of mine. With my background in health, healthy eating is also important to me but it has to be fun, creative and most importantly that it’s yummy.

I now realise that my experiences of living in different places inspire the foods I create. As I continue this quest of re-inventing myself, I’m sharing something that is very meaningful to me which is my passion for the culinary arts and cooking. I named this blog Ari Yori because that’s where it all started. The word ‘Yori’ means cooking in Korean. '‘Ari’ is derived from ‘ari-rang’ which is an ancient Korean native word.

I hope you will enjoy this journey with me!

-Ari Yori