![]() ![]() She enrolled in the graphic design program at Santa Monica College and graduated in 1994. Lee began looking for a way to earn a living. They moved to Los Angeles in 1989 so that her sons could learn English and gain better educational opportunities. In 1983 she married Tae Ro Lee, a lawyer who had become a restaurateur. She was the second-oldest daughter but the most responsible, leading her mother to tell her, “You are the son of the family now,” Dr. After high school, Hee Sook began working, too, to bring in extra income. To support the family, her mother began washing dishes in restaurants and selling items at flea markets. When Hee Sook was in middle school, a stroke left her father paralyzed. Hee Sook Hong was born in Seoul, South Korea, on June 24, 1959, one of four daughters of Young Pyo Hong, a teacher, and Chun Ja Park, a homemaker. “That’s all I can say, or it won’t be a secret anymore.” ![]() ![]() Lee said of the soup in a phone interview. Lee’s secret soondubu or other Korean dishes on the menu. Some are open 24 hours a day, for those who work odd hours or for young people hungry after a night on the town and craving Ms. Lee, who was an assistant professor at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California, helped his mother manage the business in recent years as its interim chief executive.īeginning in 1996 with one restaurant in Los Angeles, on Vermont Avenue in Koreatown, the BCD Tofu House chain, famous for drawing line-out-the-door crowds, now has 13 restaurants in 12 cities across the United States, including New York. Eddie Lee, said the cause was ovarian cancer. Lee, the founder of the BCD Tofu House chain, died on July 18 in a hospital in Los Angeles. Soon it was time to introduce the soup at her restaurant, and when she did, she could not have foreseen its impact: It would help her establishment grow into a national chain while the dish itself would become something of an American cultural phenomenon. Lee, who owned a restaurant in Los Angeles, spent many long nights in the kitchen experimenting with spices until the dish was just right: the tofu just silky enough that it melted not on the spoon but on the tongue the broth adding just the right kick of gochugaru, or Korean red chili pepper. Hee Sook Lee’s recipe for soondubu, a steaming bowl of soft tofu in a spicy, bright-red beef bone broth, was so secret, she wouldn’t even share it with her husband. ![]()
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