Beer and Kimchi

15 Thursday Mar 2012

Posted by in Cuisine

≈ 1 Comment

Guy and I once visited a lovely brewery in Sonoma Valley, California.  Acres of wheat, hops and barley swayed slightly in fields nearby.   We soon made our way inside a rustic building for a tour of those golden, shiny, cylindrical kegs of liquid deliciousness.  I was happy then.

But the earth shifted slightly when, on an otherwise gloriously sunny day, I was made privy to exactly how beer is made. This putrid abomination of a process changed me.  I had suddenly seen and smelled too much and some things are best kept secret.  I might have done well to remember that.

Actually.  I did remember it.  For about a day and a half.  Then I reckoned that beer makes the world a better place, regardless of how repugnant the process by which it goes from hops to pint glass.  But that’s a different blog altogether.  I’ll start working on it straight away.

Well, so.  Making kimchi is likewise gross.  There’s all kinds of things you have to do that involve words I hate – like smear and moisten and squish and ferment.  It’s obscene.  But so is beer.  And I haven’t stopped drinking that, now have I?

Check it out.  Photos are taken from the day Guy and his 6th graders made 4 different batches of my favorite Korean food, with it’s whole shrimp smooshed up in there, eyeballs and all.

Unpresuming, isn't it?

                                     

                  

                          

It looks like surgery, I know.  But it really is delicious.

Thank you. No, thank YOU.

14 Wednesday Mar 2012

Posted by in Strange Customs

≈ 2 Comments

The other day I received a generous gift for nothing more than welcoming a parent to school during my prep time (and not asking her to wait to see me until conferences.)

It was a lovely present – 12 palm-sized bottles of red ginseng and 8 pop-tart sized packets of – more red ginseng.  I don’t know if any of you take ginseng (or know what it’s for if you do) but I do not.  I’m gathering up the gumption for it.  Really I am.  It smells quite a lot like…earth.  The little glass jars with beautiful red labels and hangul lettering are like a private apothecary.  I feel like Dr. Jekyll swirling the concoction around diabolically, worried I’ll turn into Hyde if I drink it.

I’ve asked students and Korean colleagues what ginseng is good for.  “Your health!” they answer, with little patience.  “I know,” I reply, “but what part of my health?”  “All of it!” they tell me.  “Are you sure?” I ask. “No!” they admit with gusto.

Gifts are given in Korea for many reasons.  And for no reason at all.  One day I let a student borrow an earring from me and on the following day she brought me a handmade bookmark and a mug full of chocolates in return.  I have received cupcakes and cookies from students on their birthdays. For writing students’ recommendations, I was given two English tea mugs, a tin business card holder, fish oil and fresh bread.  Not all from the same person.  At our first round of conferences in the fall, I received hand lotion, perfume, lipstick, room deodorizer, amazing pastries and a beautiful hair barrette made of jade.

Last month, Luke spent the night at his friend Hung-gu’s house and when his mother brought him home, she gave me a vibrant yellow umbrella.  We have received honey, cooking oils, seaweed wraps, soap, shampoo/conditioner, half-dried persimmons, boxer shorts, pens, dried squid, socks, cases of noodles and boxes of plastic gloves.  I don’t need the gifts and I don’t expect them. But it’s a lovely thing Koreans do – celebrating and thanking each other every little whip stitch.  It makes a person feel celebrated.  And who doesn’t like a little of that?

These were left anonymously on our desks one day. The one of the left is Guy. Cute, eh?


To Do

06 Tuesday Mar 2012

Posted by in Speaking of Corn

≈ 7 Comments

Bring it On, Korea!

Countdown to spring, peepers.  It’s time to bust out the Yeehaw.  15 days, 15 things to put on our To Do list.  Once again, in no particular order.

1.   Go out to a Korean restaurant.  Order some traditional things we haven’t yet tried.  Not horse.  Not dog.

2.  Speak an entire sentence of Korean.  To a Korean person.  Who may or may not reply with ‘really, just stop now.’

3.  Visit Gyeongju, the Korean Cultural Center.   Why we haven’t been there yet, even if we had a reason, is stupid.  It’s close by, it’s apparently incredible and it’s so. totally. on. the. list.

4.   Step foot in North Korea.  Yes, it’s still slightly dangerous.  Listen, I’ve seen cancer up close and personal.  I can take the North Koreans. (Seriously, it’s just the DMZ.)

5.  Drink far too much soju (I know, you’d think I’d have done that by now)  and head to the Nori Bang—that’s karaoke, in a private room, to you and me.  The world needs itself some Loveshack, baby!  I’d regret it forever if we didn’t go.

6.  Go see a professional Korean basketball game. Check!

7. Go see a professional baseball game.  Basketball was so much fun (see upcoming blog), we’re hoping for more of the same.

8.  Find a way to thank the woman in our neighborhood who has cut our family’s hair this year.  She, and her elderly mother, who inhabits the couch and watches soap operas in her jammies and giant fuzzy socks,  welcome us happily each time. She calls me “wife.”  I like her quite a bit.

9.  Visit the orphanage here in Daegu.  Bring gifts. (6.17.12 update:  I am not going to make this trip.  I realized I was more nosy than helpful.  It was more a “should” do list item than something I really felt would mean something to the children.)

10.  Learn three swear words in Korean.  From my children, who already know them.

11.  Organize the thousands of photos we’ve already taken and make some Snapfish photo books.  I think the kids will appreciate them, someday.  Or, back in Belfast, we can invite our friends and family over on the promise of homemade nachos and then make them watch a slideshow.  Pure evil!

12.  Bite the bullet and try Korean McDonald’s, Burger King and Pizza Hut.  I do this for Luke.

13.  Find the elusive reusable bag with the word “Korea” on it.  I’m a woman on a mission.

14.  Buy matching jackets for me and my man, to say once and for all, hands off ladies, he’s mine!   (I can’t even write that without cracking up.  Mostly because of the look on Guy’s face when I imagine it.  Matching jackets.  I kill myself.)

15.  Say YES to everything we can until we hop a flight home.  Yes, yes, yes.  And more yes.