Cheeseburgers in Paradise

An outdoor hamburger stand is located across from our hotel in the gravel on the side of the road. There is a wooden picnic bench and a standing flat grilltop the size of first base. One woman leisurely flips burgers and heats hotdogs as big as Pinocchio's nose after a giant whopper. I was drawn to the stand for the simple fact that burgers were somewhere around 50 cents (I remembered them as 10 cents, but after conferring with Sami, 50 is probably closer to the truth).

My fascination with cheap burgers runs deep. In high school, whenever McDonald's would run it's 29 cent hamburger or 39 cent cheeseburger special, my friend Josh and I would purchase the maximum allotment of 20. We would take them to his house, unwrap them, and stack them on a plate pyramid style in an attempt to class up the appearance of our feast (note to any female readers: this is how teenage boys think). Of course, what we should have realized was that the paper serves as a necessary heating element, and cold burgers (especially Mickey D's cheeseburgers where the processed cheese gets all congealed and waxy) are nasty. Once we had our girlfriends over and they watched in horror as we stuffed our faces on cold beef and bread. They conveniently left well before we finished so we sat alone and consumed the remainder feeling fat, farty and ashamed. We'd get new girlfriends eventually.

Past experiences should have taught me to abstain from any cheap, roadside burgers in El Nido, or at least temper my expectations regarding flavor. They did not, in either case, and I ended up sampling something inferior to even McDonald's (full disclosure, I actually do love McDonald's. Especially a Big Mac. Former co-workers brought in Big Macs for my birthday one year and I ate two of them shits. One even after my boss took a giant bite and left a sloppy 'U.' I am dirty). It wasn't terrible, but it reminded me more of a burger you would find in Korea- too sweet. Also it had a strange sauce the lady said was ketchup and mayonnaise. No way. Chili sauce and mayo maybe which is too sweet as well. Proving that I have no control whatsoever, I later had one of those long hot dogs. It had that same sauce and it wasn't very good either and I ate every bite.

Where will Baby Boyd be born? Part II

Last weekend was one of our most eventful weekends in months. We visited a birthing clinic in Ansan (about 2 hours away by subway), met Tor and Becky for lunch afterwards, and then visited the House of Sharing on Sunday (see Joe’s previous blog). It may sound strange, but so far I am really enjoying the third trimester of my pregnancy. I seem to feel better with each passing week, and lately I have WAY more energy than I had during both the first and second trimesters (but still no nesting…). Because of the stories I have heard from everyone about the third trimester I figured I wouldn’t want to do much of anything, but I am sleeping better and seem to feel my best when I am active and busy. Hopefully things will stay this way for a few more weeks.

The exciting news: we officially know where we plan on having our baby! We made our decision after visiting midwife Rosa’s clinic in Ansan. As I stated previously, it takes about 2 hours to get there from where we live by subway, but it takes only 30-40 minutes by taxi. It is always comical to me when people express concern about the length of the taxi ride and bring up the possibility of me delivering in the taxi. Let’s be honest- I am probably going to be in labor a LONG time, although a short labor would be nice…

Joe gets super irritated whenever we have to take the subway. People are supposed to yield to older people, pregnant women, and women with children. At this point, I feel like I am obviously pregnant, but I am only offered a seat about 30% of the time we ride the subway. Usually people pretend to sleep or keep their eyes glued to whatever portable electronic device is entertaining them. I have even had people cut me off in order to get to a seat before I can. Joe says it is because I don’t act pregnant enough. He says I need to act like my back hurts and rub my belly the way Korean women do, but I just can’t bring myself to engage in these kinds of pitiful behaviors. Maybe in a month or two when I am super pregnant and the weather is hot and humid, but for now I refuse to act like a weak pregnant woman.

We arrived in Ansan and met up with Lisa (our doula) and Stacey (our back-up doula) and we made the short trek to Rosa’s clinic. Rosa is a Korean midwife who has delivered more than 10,000 (no joke) babies. She speaks great English, and I liked her immediately because she told me I am very small, even by Korean standards. What woman doesn’t want to hear that they are small when they are 7 months pregnant?

The bulk of our discussion was focused on our concerns regarding birthing at her clinic or birthing at home. We like the idea of birthing at home because it is where we are the most comfortable and we could avoid taking a taxi to and from the birthing center. However, we don’t have an air conditioner, and the thought of laboring during hot and humid August doesn’t sound all that appealing. We also have a lot of trees near our apartment, and the cicadas are quite obnoxious during the month of August. Our biggest concern with birthing at the birthing center is the fact that we have to take a taxi there, but we really liked the air conditioning, comfortable room, and cost of birthing there.

Ultimately, the air conditioner made the decision much easier for us, and we have decided to have the baby at the birthing center. Once my contractions are getting stronger and closer together I will call Lisa. She will either meet us at home and travel with us to the birthing center, or she will wait and meet us at the birthing center. It all depends on how I am handling labor.

We have to make the journey to Ansan one more time before the birth when I am around 37 weeks pregnant. Rosa will check the baby’s position and we will go over any final details before the birth. I was also advised to have acupuncture starting around 35 weeks. Many Asians swear by acupuncture as a way to make sure the baby is correctly positioned and comes on time. It is very cheap in Korea- between $5 and $7, so it is definitely something I am going to look into.

The room where I will likely give birth

It may look like a tree, but this was made from someone's placenta!

After our appointment we ventured 3 subway stops further to meet Tor and Becky for lunch. Last weekend was the first of 3 weekend outings we have planned. Next weekend we are touring the DMZ, and the weekend after that we are going camping close to Nami Island. We had to decide between Indian food, sushi, or Uzbeki food. Joe really wanted Indian food, so we started at the Indian restaurant for lunch and went to the Uzbeki restaurant afterwards for beers (water for me) and meat pies. My taste buds are still completely off. The dish that everyone found extremely spicy wasn’t spicy at all for me, but another dish that no one found spicy was making my eyes water.

Kantipur, Ansan, South Korea

We do not know why the waiter decided to take a crooked picture.

Along the walk to the Uzbeki restaurant we passed this vendor selling fresh dog meat.

Uzbeki Restaurant

Note: If you eat Indian food and Indians are present, they will probably stare at you if you eat with your left hand. Why? That’s the hand they use to wipe their butts.

The Ar-Cee

My school has a lot of money. It is a public elementary school so don't ask me why, or how come Sami's school just around the way is so worse off. All I know is that it has a lot lot of money and I can tell because it built an entire English Adventure Zone next to my classroom. The area was constructed with the single purpose of helping students become more comfortable using English in real-world situations. In it, there is a mock supermarket with painted, plastic and styrofoam  fruits and vegetables that, be it not for their unfamiliar weight and lack of smell, would fit right at home in any brownbag lunch or icebox. There is a doctors office with waiting room and operating tools, a movie theater with working screen, a mock, sliced open passenger airplane, a customs counter, and a restaurant. Other, non-English related hints of wealth include 50 inch plasma televisions in each classroom, plush leather recliners in the teachers' rooms, and recently purchased ping-pong tables and equipment strictly for teacher use. And not some ratty used tables you would see in a basement, wobbly legged and liable to crash if bumped. These are nice tables.

With this in mind, I was pleased, but not altogether surprised when my advisor asked if there was anything I needed for our apartment. Apparently my school had come into even more money and was looking to spread it around outside of the classroom.

I asked for a rice cooker, mainly because the contract called for the school to provide either that or a toaster and we got the toaster. Also, cooking rice was a real pain in the ass. Back in the states I always just used the instant stuff, but over here, they would sooner eat rat poison (and I have become a convert as well. Instant rice sucks). First I would put the rice in an amount of water I guessed was right and then turned on the burner. When the water started to boil I lowered the gas fueled flame to barely flicker. Because the gas burner is too powerful, even at the lowest setting, the water would over flow. I would lift the lid to cool it and drop the level while giving it a good stir. At first I only muster mush and a burned bottom. Eventually, I learned how to baby it the right way, but who has time for that?

When I made the request for the rice cooker the teachers looked at each other and shared a secret smile before offering me a toothy grin and a thumbs up. As if I had said the magic words and gained admittance into a secret society. When the apparatus came days later, they clapped and pranced as if it were Christmas morning in 1983 and 1955 respectively.

The rice cooker is big, the size of a football helmet. Not a normal sized one though think of the one Steve Tasker wore with an extra layer of protection. An aesthetic compromise made after too many concussions. It is white and has four buttons whose function I could not translate. When I kindly asked for instructions on how to use it, the older of my co-teachers extended herleft index finger and created a level line across the second knuckles of her right hand.

"Water here," she instructed.

"I don't understand," I said.

"Water here, and push," she said, making the same gesture with both hands and then pointing to the big red button.

"Uh, ok."

I eventually learned to cover the rice with enough water that, when pressing my hand down flat against it, the water level just reached my second knuckles. This trick works perfectly no matter how much rice I put in. These people know their rice.

Through experimentation, I have also taught myself how to cook other food stuffs. Oatmeal is easy, as is chicken which always comes out moist, and I really like to make pasta and mashed potatoes (when the potatoes are done, stir in your butter, milk, cream cheese, scallion whatever). The pasta took some work as it came out a little gummy at first, but the magic that occurs when the lid is locked creates an incredible concentration of flavors. I even make pork sandwiches with homemade barbecue sauce- ketchup, brown sugar, splash of soy sauce, pepper, garlic and a can of coca-cola all in the Ar-cee. Yes, I named my rice cooker and yes, the name is a play on its initials. I took the idea from Arby's.

As our time in Korea is winding down, I know I am going to miss the Ar-cee, the good times we've had, the good food we've created, however at this moment, four large Rubbermaid storage bins are collecting dust in my grandmother's basement. Our unopened wedding gifts from two years ago sit stacked in the quiet darkness of those bins. I know there is a table top deep fryer in there, and I've often thought of frying up my own chicken wings on a Super Bowl Sunday. There is an iron skillet that is going to be perfect for camping. I plan on somehow mounting it over an open fire, sizzling up bacon and frying the eggs in the drippings on a cold, woodsy morning.  Of course, there is a rice cooker in there too, and that's the first thing I am going to use. I probably won't even pull out the instructions. I already know that all it needs is water up to there (points to knuckles).

Bangkok Street Food

For some reason, I was more excited about the food in Saigon and Hanoi than Bangkok. I don't know why. Maybe it sounded more exotic or something. In hindsight, Vietnam had some great hits. The thought of an iced coffee makes me salivate, and I could eat a bahn mi once a day 'til I die. However, of all the places we traveled to over the last two years, Bangkok turned out to be the king of cuisine. We barely made a scratch in the famous street munchies that make the city so famous, but at least we took pictures.

Okay, so this first example isn't necessarily street food. We stopped off in this restaurant on Khao San Road on our way to the Grand Palace. Khao San Road evolves into a hopping party when the sun goes down, but at this hour, we and hundreds of additional tourists were just searching for a cool place to avoid the heat. We sat inside and Sami ordered greasy Pad Thai (hey, someone had to do it). I had an appetizer of fried pork strips. I wanted to save my appetite for tasty street food along the walk. The pork, fried with sesame seeds, was crispy, hard and dry. The Thai chile sauce it came with was good though. All around it was not the best introduction to Thai cuisine.

This was something I snagged after the restaurant on the walk to the Royal Palace. These little guys are everywhere, and if we hadn't exchanged our Bangkok Lonely Planet at the English Bookstore in Korea, I would look up the name. I like to think of them as little Thai tacos. The yellow that you see is not cheese, but rather caramelized coconut shavings. They say they come in two kinds, savory and sweet but the sweet one is pretty savory and the savory is quite sweet. I actually bought another variety in Kanchanaburi, but I guess I forgot to take a picture. They are all about 3 for a dollar.

Having struck out in finding famous grilled chicken in Hanoi, I couldn't pass up the grill lady who set up shop just across the street from our hotel. She had a great English menu that listed the prices for each different piece. I bought two skewers of skin and back meat. Being a foreigner, she tried to skimp out on the sauce, so I made sure to point and the condiments and grunt approvingly. She got the message and placed the skewers in a plastic bag, squirted in a stream of soy or fish sauce, and then dusted in some salty, spicy seasoning. With my hand on the outside of the bag, I rubbed the tasty goodness all over the hot skin. Usually, I don't like fatty meat, but the juju she threw over the chicken pieces left me gnawing on every tendon. I made a mental not to visit her again for a piece with more substance.

Obviously, I wasn't expecting my best meal in Thailand to be found at the Bangkok zoo, but this salad was incredible. Hot and sour, salty and crunchy. Probably the same thing I glance over on Thai menus in the US in search of Pad Thai.

This was our favorite dish in Bangkok, and I say "ours" because Sami stole most of it from me. Tom Yam noodle soup purchased at a street stall on Khao San Road for around a dollar. The coconut milk tried its best to mellow the fiery heat, but I still sweated like Glen "Big Baby" Davis throughout spoonfuls. The rice noodles are a little more firm than the ones we sampled in Hanoi Pho, and overall I find the freshness of Tom Yam preferable to the Vietnamese specialty.

Sami's first pregnancy craving was the fruit in Bangkok. Every morning I woke to the sounds of a fruit vendor hacking away at watermelon and carving up papaya. Right now, you can purchase a small watermelon in Korea for about twenty dollars. When we were in Bangkok, we bought giant bags of the sweetest watermelon for about a quarter. Sami was in love with the watermelon, whereas I chose to be less monogamous, venturing into pineapple and papaya territory as well.

The fruit is served in plastic bags with a bamboo skewer, and I told myself not to worry about future environmental repercussions while sampling God's juicy fine fare.

These wontons I bought were served the same way. I actually don't remember much about this item except for the fact that a fellow foreigner came up behind me and quizzed me about it. "What's that?" "Is it good?" How much is it?" I don't know dude, everything is good just get it.

This is a terrible picture, but this sausage type thing stuffed with rice was bomb. I think it is just a good rule of thumb that if it is served on a stick, it's awesome. I should have eaten about thirty more of these, but it was one of those things where I wasn't really hungry and I wasn't sure how much it cost.

Finally, on our last night I decided to ignore my bulging stomach from the street food extravaganza and follow up on the promise I made to revisit the grilled chicken lady. Here is a better pick of her station.

Before she throws on the sauce and Asian taste dust, she warms the piece over a charcoal grill. This sweats the skin and makes the dust stick. This worked great with the tiny skin strips I ate earlier, but with this leg, she should have left it on the grill for another half hour. There is nothing worse than slimy chicken.

Sure enough, slimy and undercooked. I couldn't eat it. So much for my theory about food on a stick.

Eating for Two

The bus trip back to Ho Chi Minh City from Phnom Penh was brutally long. The ones in charge shoved in a VHS copy of Mr. Bones 2 which was dubbed in a shreiking language no passenger could understand. My ipod died early into the journey and I never have the best luck trying to read in a moving vehicle, so I passed the time by covering my ears and staring out into the flat, ox strewn farmland.

We knew going in that our Southeast Asia vacation had energy-wiping potential. Instead of kicking back on a beach at an all inclusive resort for three weeks, we opted to bounce around in an attempt to cover as much ground as possible. All told we would board 8 separate flights totaling 19 and a half hours on top of 23 combined hours of layover time. During our time on the ground and out of airports, over 42 hours were spent riding in 9 different buses or vans. During the 23 day excursion we slept in 9 different beds.

The itinerary was even more daunting for Sami who, at the time, was in the middle of her first trimester of pregnancy. This new development forced us to fall into a fuel stretching routine. Morning was the most energetic time and we responded by rising early, dining on breakfast typically provided by whatever hotel we were staying in and heading out on our designated mission. Lunch was usually early and when we could manage it, a mid afternoon rest, cleanup for dinner and in bed by eight or nine. When Sami slept I usually found something to watch online. I think I watched Black Swan early in the trip and the NFL playoffs were on during this time as well.

Eating was also a problem. Sami would get nauseous when her stomach was empty, but certain foods would make it worse. Every meal was a gamble- would it stay down or no? Would it leave a disgusting aftertaste no toothpaste could conceal? Our plan of attack was to order small amounts of as much food as possible. If she liked it, she ate much as she could stomach, and I polished off the rest. If she couldn't, I ate it all. Sami tended to crave the kind of foods she was familiar with and indulged in growing up- pizza, pasta, fries. After one or two bites, she would give up. I would pick up the slack on the hard hitting greasy foods, but I was still insistent on trying all of the local cuisine, so between feedings I would indulge in a street food treat. I ended up a fat and hating myself (but secretly happy).

When our bus finally did arrive back in Ho Chi Minh City, it was nearing our bedtime. I would have been content calling it a day, full from days of eating for two. However, Sami was feeling as woozy as she had all trip and insisted we find a place to eat. She led us to a well lit restaurant with a diner quality. We sat in the front, flanked by the street and open air. Further inside sat a loud group of six young tourists. The three couples let a Filipino man do most of the talking. He waxed poetic about his home country's culinary reputation and I listened carefully to his descriptions of fried pork and greasy concoctions knowing our time in The Philippines lay a mere two weeks ahead.

Sami had a bowl of Pho and (victory!) ate it all. We shared a rice flour crepe filled with pork, shrimp and bean sprouts which was served with a sweet chili dipping sauce. I also ordered chicken wings with fish sauce. I love fish sauce and I hear that there is a restaurant in Portland known for such wings, so I couldn't pass it up. They were perfect, not too salty, and I can't wait to get back to Oregon to compare.

Let it be known that the conclusion of this meal marked the exact moment when her craving for fruit and sweets began and would last for the duration of the trip. This is what we ordered:

While we waited for dessert, a young peddler came to our table and showed off her briefcase of cigars. We found that the peddlers in Vietnam had more of a sense of humor than those in Cambodia. To Sami's horror, I inquired as to the price of each item. I am not a smoker, but hey I'm on vacation. I asked the price of a tin of Dutch coffee cigarellos and was told 200,000 Dong (about $10 US).

"Too much," I said. "100" (meaning 100 thousand)

"No, sir," she replied. "150 ok you buy now"

"No, no, no. Sorry 100 or nothing." I had been burned too many times and now I was standing my ground. After a few minutes which were fun to me, but agonizing to Sami, our new friend came up with an idea.

"Ok, we play game. You know rock, paper, scissors? If I win you pay 150, if you win 100."

I laughed, charmed by her creativeness, but was determined to hold my ground. After an impossibly long and uncomfortable silence, she finally relented.

"Ok, 100."

"Deal."

The next morning while walking outside near our hotel I saw the same brand of cigars in a convenience store being sold for 60.

An Authentic Experience

I wanted to walk the streets of Saigon like Anthony Bourdain or the fat, bald guy who salivates over fermented deer penis and grubs. I daydreamed of confidently strolling into the dirtiest back alley noodle stall and ordering the city's best pho in perfect Vietnamese. The locals would gape in awe at my expert chopstick usage and clamber over each other for the privilege of purchasing my first beer.

Of course, our Travel Channel heroes are undoubtedly chaperoned by bi-lingual experts in their city's culture and cuisine, and I soon found out that it is not so easy to eat like the locals. At least not without making a fool out of myself.

The first handicap in my quest for authenticity was my dear wife, who would just as rather lick the floor of a rest stop men's room than order anything from a food stall. I am convinced that she has created an equation for the perfect dining experience wherein points are awarded for a restaurant's cleanliness, brightness, size (the bigger the better) menu posted outside in English (prices included), and above all, the presence of other tourists.

We settled into a routine of eating at an establishment of her choosing, but I strategically ordered light fare, and left plenty of room to dash off to a back alley food stall afterward. In all honesty, all of the food we ate in Saigon was incredible, and some of the most memorable were from Sami's restaurant choices. Including these two:

Chicken wings with fish sauce. Wings just like I like 'em- crispy. I was worried that they would be too salty, but no way. Just perfect.

Crepe filled with pork, shrimp and bean sprouts served with a sweet dipping sauce. I believe this is called a Bahn xeo, but I call it a B-O-M-B xeo.

Still, despite all of the stellar restaurant food, I was dead set on getting my authentic fix. Right from the start, I had noticed many Vietnamese eating what appeared to be a sort of salad out of a plastic bag. I saw many women sitting on the sidewalk selling some variation on the same thing. I approached one random salad selling squatter and grunted out my order. She seemed dead set on not giving me the salad I craved, but quail eggs instead. This incensed me. I thought for sure that she was just trying to pawn off the more expensive order on the white tourists. I made my intentions clear with another grunt. No one else was eating the quail eggs, why should I? When it finally dawned on the vendor that I could not be deterred, she gave a giddy giggle. And her competitors nearby gave the same giggle and the look of a shared inside joke. The salad was of a crunchy vegetable similar daikon shavings. It was delicious, but mainly because of the squirt of vinegar chili sauce, which she was also reluctant to give.

The approach

Victory! (Although I must say I was displeased by the apparent necessity of the plastic bag that I just know will one day end up stuck in an endangered whale's blowhole.)

I had a similar experience to this on our first night in Saigon. Every local I saw walking around seemed to be carrying and munching from a plastic bag lightly filled with multiple, thumb-sized, salmon-colored squares. I placed an order by pointing and received the customary chuckles. She filled a fruit roll-up like rice paper with chopped quail eggs, bacon, onion sprig and a squirt of honey-mustard type sauce before rolling it and cutting it into pieces. It was so good that it haunted me for a full day after and I knew I must re-visit. However, the second time I went a young Vietnamese man nearby seemed completely overjoyed and intrigued by my purchase and would not leave us alone. He kept asking me if I liked it and tried to get Sami to take a piece. Being as the dirty street and plastic bag met none of the criteria in her restaurant equation, she politely declined. The man followed us all the way to the crosswalk, and passersby looked on equally intrigued- by me or our new friend's passionate admiration, I could not tell. It wasn't until we began crossing the road that I understood. It was then that an ex-pat holding hands with a giggling Vietnamese woman turned to me and said, "By eating that you are going to grow large breasts."


Oh. Yes, it's true. Eating like the locals isn't as easy as it is on Bizarre Foods. But, if I can't eat like Andrew Zimmern in Saigon, at least I can grow matching man boobs.

This is delicious street food and may or may not enlarge your bust.

Korean Homecooking from a Foreigner's Perspective

Here is an article I just wrote for another Web site. Please check it out!

http://www.suite101.com/content/korean-homecooking-from-a-foreigners-perspective-a326252

Japche

What do you prefer rice or noodles? I always thought that I like noodles more, but if I had to eat one every day, it would be rice. But noodles are pretty good too.

Tonight I made a very traditional Korean noodle dish called japche. Japche, songpyun (a holiday dessert of sweetly stuffed sticky and soft rice cake) and bulgogi (directly translated as "fire meat") were the first three foods I learned about in Korea. I found out about them while preparing for my first 5th grade lesson titled "Do You Want Some More?"

Do you like bulgogi?

-Yes, I do. I like bulgogi.

Do you want some more?

-No, thanks. I'm full.  

Try and find a way to stretch that into 40 minutes and that should give you an idea of what my job is like.

Anyway, to make japche you should posses the following:

vermicelli noodles
vegetables such as:
a carrot (traditional)
an onion (traditional)
shiitake mushrooms (I used a different kind of mushroom pictured below)
spinach (I didn't use spinach because apparently it is expensive this time of year)
bell pepper(not traditional, but I've seen it)
green onion (if you want)
garlic (ditto)
ground beef (not much, this is supposed to be a noodle/vegetable dish. In fact, I didn't use any meat tonight)
soy sauce
sesame oil
sesame seeds

These are the mushrooms I used instead of shiitakes. They are cheaper and they are the kind my school uses all the time in japche. I am not sure what they are called, but you see them everywhere around here. I think I may have even read them referred to as 'Korean mushrooms.'

To cook japche follow these steps"

Step one: Throw a good handful of vermicelli noodles into boiling water. I didn't throw enough in there at first so when the first batch was finished, I added another. I blame it on our one ridiculously small soup pot. Living frugally does have its drawbacks.

Step two: While waiting for your water to boil, thinly slice all of your veg (I used one onion, one carrot and maybe the equivalent of for shiitakes) except the spinach, then fry it in a all with a little bit of oil (I used canola). Throw the ground beef in there too if you are doing that. Add a little bit of soy sauce and sesame oil. I don't know maybe a tablespoon of soy sauce and a half a tablespoon of sesame oil. Don't overdo it. When the carrot slices have wilted, remove all veg from heat.

Step three: Remove the noodles, but save the water. I just threw them into the frying pan with the veg, heat turned off.

Step four: If you are using spinach, drop it in the boiling water used for the noodles. When it wilts, quickly throw it into a bowl of ice water.

Step five: Season the noodles and veg with a little more soy sauce and sesame oil to taste. Add green onion and chopped garlic if you want. I definitely recommend a sprinkling of sesame seeds.

Step six: Back to that pesky spinach. See why I didn't use it? Remove it from the cold water, wring it dry, season with a tiny pit of sesame oil and soy sauce. Add it to the noodles and veg. I like to turn the heat back on the pan for a minute or so and make sure that all of the flavors really combine. Don't burn the garlic though ok. Oh, and I guess some people add a little sugar in there too, but I didn't and didn't notice anything different.

That's it. Pretty easy right? And darn tasty. Funny thing is that japche is actually on the menu tomorrow at school. I guess I will get a chance to see how mine stacks up.

Retirement Ceremony and Korean BBQ

Two of the teachers at my school are retiring and with only five minutes remaining until quitting time last Friday, my co-teacher inquired if I would sing during their formal retirement ceremony the following Monday. It wasn't her idea to ask. Apparently she was put up to it by one of the music instructors who incorrectly assumed that the English song she chose would be best suited for the one person who could comprehend its meaning. Earlier in my tenure, I may have considered it as a ballsy way to try and fit in, but I have grown comfortable enough in my status among peers to convey my unwillingness to humiliate myself without the slightest amount of guilt. I believe my exact words were "I'd rather cut off one of my fingers." The tone of my declaration, combined with the universal sign of digit mutilation must have come across clearly, because I didn't hear anything else about it until I walked into our school's auditorium Monday afternoon late for the start of the ceremony. I decided to wait out in the hallway until the South Korean national anthem had finished thinking it would be tacky to barge in like the clumsy foreigner I am. Of course the only seat that remained open was in the front row.

The ceremony was more formal than what I would imagine an American elementary teacher retirement party of store bought cake and punch would be. The two teachers- one of which is my good friend and yoga partner- sat facing the rest of the faculty behind a table decorated with flowers. The Vice Principal stood off to the side and listed each retiring teacher's bio- where they went to college, when they got married and what schools they taught at over the years. In Korea, teachers are required to change schools every four or five years so the bio ran longer even without the western tradition of personal anecdotes and inside jokes.

VP Breaks down the career highlights.

Next our Principal (and only other male at my school) said a few words at a center podium and presented the teachers with boxed gifts. I could only make out one of the three- a heavy glass award.

The Principal hands out awards. Notice the color banner in the background. Those things can't be cheap, and yet they print them for every function.

After that one of the teachers read something that she had penned specifically for this occasion over music. It must have been a touching tribute because many of the teachers dabbed at their eyes with tissue. I sat struggling to stay awake.

When the applause from the reading had faded a group of eight flutists stepped forward accompanied by a violinist and a pianist. All of the musicians are fellow teachers. First they played a song that my co-teacher has since taken to humming every vacant second, and then they played along with a choir of a half dozen. My principal picked up the slack for me and belted out the opening solo.

Neither cake, nor punch was served, but after a group photo, we all departed for my school's favorite Korean barbecue joint across town. I have been to this particular restaurant at least a half dozen times. The first time Sami and I were invited by one of my co-worker's husbands who I exchange clumsy e-mails with. Each subsequent time (about 5 in all) has been for a school function. The location is chosen for its ability to accommodate a large group, but the food never disappoints.

The best part about barbecue in Korea, or any restaurant really, is that you don't have to wait longer than five minutes for your meal. The long, communal table is covered with plates of side dishes, and you are encouraged to reach across your neighbor and plunge your chopsticks in at will.

There are two sets of barbecue pits evenly carved into the tables and filled with fire hot coals shaped like rustic wood logs. A simple metal grate is placed over the pit and marinated meat (in our case pork rib) is set on the grate. One person at the table is in charge of turning the meat and cutting it into bite size pieces with scissors. They must not think that foreigners have the mental capacity for such a task for every time I try to grab the tongs and scissors, one of the waitresses (ajumas) grabs them from me and frantically begins cutting- leaving me small pieces as if I were a toddler. Each person builds their own lettuce wrap with one piece of meat, onions, spicy bean paste, garlic and maybe some kimchi and rice. The proper method is to wrap it all up and shove it into your mouth in one bite.

A few of the side dishes up close. Fried fish in a pork cutlet sauce (so good I ate all of it and it was supposed to be shared), a water kimchi and soft tofu.

Lettuces for wraps

Our first meal out in Korea was barbecue and all of the staff and patrons stared at us in horror as we nibbled at our wraps. I thought that there was no way they could expect me to put the huge ball of lettuce, meat and rice into my mouth all at once. This must be some sick joke they play on foreigners, I thought.

Mmm. Fire meat.

Now I don't think twice about shoving it all in and accept the stream of water and grease down my wrist and mouth corners as an authentic side effect. I have even grown accustomed to sitting cross legged on the floor during my meal. I used to last only ten minutes until both legs and butt cheeks fell asleep. Now its 20.

My favorite part of the meal comes at the end, after the meat has been devoured. For "dessert" we are served an ice cold bowl of skinny, buckwheat noodles in red pepper paste called naemyung. A year ago, you couldn't have talked me into this, but now, I couldn't think of a better ending to a meal. Except maybe cake and punch.

My favorite nangmyun. This is the mixed variety, but there is also one served in a cold broth.

Anniversary Brunch

Living in a country which relishes molesting foreign cuisine tends to make Westerners crave the simple, fatty and familiar tastes of old.

If you find yourself in a grocery store in Korea (Sami and I shop at Lotte Mart, which is so crowded it makes Winco seem like an abandoned eastern Oregon strip mall) you may come across a bag of harmless English muffins, a tubed string cheese and a straightforward brown jug of iced tea. After purchasing the items you might decide to call in an order for that most convenient of meals known worldwide- pizza. Do not be surprised when, upon unpacking the items, you discover the muffins stuffed with sweetened red bean paste, the tubed "cheese" created from ground and formed fish product, and bits of reconstituted chestnuts, berries and pine nuts floating in the tea. Meanwhile the pie arriving at your door is loaded with sweet potato puree, corn and a generous side of sweet pickles.

For our first anniversary, I made reservations for Sunday brunch at a small French bistro in the Itaewan section of Seoul. Needless to say, we eagerly anticipated the opportunity to dine somewhere quiet without asking ourselves, "Why couldn't it have tasted the I way I thought it was going to?"

I chose the Le Ex Saint Restaurant after researching the champagne brunches of a few of the ritzier hotels in Seoul. Yes the steaks and crepes and lobster omelets sounded divine, but impossible to justify at $80 a plate. Back before I was married, I could surprise Sami something like this, but now that she controls my every cent, there are no surprises. Every financial decision must be passed into law with her signature.

Itaewan, located directly in the center of Seoul on the north side of the Han River, is known as the city's international neighborhood. Only a decade ago, the area had a reputation as the part of town reputable Korean girls were not to be seen in after dark. The combination of young and drunk American G.I.s and the presence of one of the city's oldest red light districts created a hedonistic playground most Koreans avoided like pizza sans pickles.

Today, Itaewan is know more for international cuisine and street shopping. Most native speaking English teachers like myself venture there to find bigger shoes and longer pants, but you can also find your stereotypical Korean trinkets like cartoon socks.

Cartoon socks

The Le Saint Ex Bistro is located down an alley outside of the number one exit of the Itaewan subway stop. This tiny alleyway houses a large percentage of Seoul's authentic international restaurants. Le Saint opened only six years ago, and a handful of sports pubs, hamburger joints and kebab stands followed.

International Food Alley

We arrived a few minutes before our reservation and read the sparse menu written in colored chalk on a large blackboard outside. I had read that the menu changed from day to day and remained small. I liked this because I felt like it meant the chef could focus and do a few things extremely well. We were led to our seat by a nice young Frenchman who read us the same items we had seen outside. Sami ordered the English breakfast and I had the brunch special which was a choice of soup or salad, an entree and a dessert. The entree was a beef stew in white wine sauce and because of this, I chose to start with the salad. Soup and stew seemed too close to the same for me. 

After taking our order, a Korean waitress dropped off strong coffee and baguette slices with a generous pad of butter. A laminated card on a stand informed us that we were being served a traditional, organic, French baguette made by traditional French methods from flour shipped from Paris. It had been so long since we had tasted decent bread that we would have appreciated a croissant prepared by the Pillsbury Doughboy shipped from the Grocery Outlet in a cardboard pop n' fresh tube, but the baguette was heaven.

The salad was small, at least compared to the monsters I was accustomed to loading at Sizzler and the like, and was accompanied by a tan and wobbly egg jelly. There were at least three kinds of lettuces, shredded endive, carrots, thinly sliced radishes and tiny cubes of red bell pepper all hit with balsamic. The egg jelly was perfect with the salad. Koreans are fond of an acorn jelly cut brick-like and served with soy sauce. It is good but flavorless. The egg jelly had a creamy fat consistency and smeared equally well on the greens and crusty baguette. I have been searching like mad trying to learn how to make it.

Sami's meal was simple and rustic. A thick slice of toast with jam, eggs scrambled soft and just right with butter and cream thrown in at the end, French fried homefries, and two wet red slices of watermelon. There was also a small salad and a deliciously fried apple slice dusted with sugar. The only component which seemed to disappoint was the limp weak bacon that lay white and lifeless atop the eggs. I picked up the bacon, dabbed it in balsamic and ate it on top of a baguette slice, one eye fixed on the watermelon that was sure to be mine.

The beef stew came out after Sami had finished her meal. A patty of Australian beef seasoned and stuffed with shallots sat on a spread of fettuccine. The white wine sauce made from the fat drippings of the burger was beefy, salty and completely un-Korean. I wiped up all of the sauce with a piece of baguette, reached for Sami's watermelon and took a tiny bite of the point before being called away from the table by our waiter to the dessert menu near the door.

There were five choices of dessert, one of which was their famous floating ball of merenge coated with a hard sugar shell. I opted for the chocolate mousse.

Upon my return, I quickly discovered that a nightmarishly evil act of apathy had taken place whilst I ogled away. Sami had let a waitress carry away the uneaten watermelon! Damn you! In a full year of marriage I never would have dreamed you to carry out an act so treacherous! I sat too shocked for words and stared out into space. I imagined the lonely and succulent fruit surrounded by a pile of sauce splattered dishes, calling my name longingly from the kitchen. For the first time I began to question the merits of marriage. How could my best friend, someone I have known and trusted for years deceive me so? And on this of all days.

Luckily the mousse came and made me quickly forget about the watermelon. Sami even let me order an espresso to eat with the dessert which was rich and decadent, more like cake batter than the pudding mousse I was used to.

After brunch we walked around Itaewan a bit. There is a great English language bookstore that we wanted to check out. On the way, we passed by Taco Bell, the first in Korea which was having its Grand Opening on this day. There was a line forming around the block. 

Many of the people in line were Koreans, no longer ashamed to be seen in the international part of the city, and many more Westerners yearning for a taste of home.

Royal Bibimbap

Bibimbap was the first meal served to us in Korea. Actually, it was served to us somewhere over the Pacific on a Korean Air flight, but felt authentic enough to us at the time.

I was baffled by the countless number of unidentifiable, packaged vegetables and small plastic containers surrounding the pre-cooked portion of white rice. Luckily, there was a young English teacher seated next to us confidently assembling his meal. I copied his every move- scooped the rice into a large bowl, carefully placed the provided meat and vegetables on top of the rice, added a squeeze of thick, red pepper paste and a few drops of sesame oil and then stirred it all together with a spoon. The flavor was mild and dominated by the rice. Not nearly as exotic as I had anticipated. I increased the heat by adding in the remainder of the red pepper paste and congratulated myself for trying something new. Another short term goal accomplished.

Today I am intimately familiar with Korea's national dish, and even recommended it to my cousin Jennifer during a recent layover in Seoul. I recognize that the previously unidentifiable vegetables on the plane were probably brackens, Chinese bellflowers, reconstituted shiitakes, seaweed and bean sprouts. The red pepper paste is called kochujang, and is a pantry staple of ours along with doenjang (fermented bean paste), ssamchang (doenjang seasoned with kochujang, sesame oil, onion, garlic, green onions, and brown sugar) and jajang (a black bean paste that is awesome fried up with noodles and vegetables).

Recently, Sami and I took an "Experiencing Royal Culture" class at the National Palace Museum in Seoul. The four day curriculum was created for native English speakers and Koreans interested in either becoming tour guides or practicing English. During the third class, we learned how to cook royal bibimbap. We were treated to a cooking demonstration before cooking ourselves. Sami and I were paired up with a sweet elderly Korean woman. The woman spoke very good English until she became flustered and then she lost it all. She was not really one for teamwork either. Maybe she thought that the white couple she was paired with were not capable of preparing bibimbap meant for a king. She would have been perfectly content to do all the work herself, but being since I like to cook and wanted to learn, I elbowed her out of the way and began to hoard the station with my much larger frame.

Cooking and assembling the meal was really quite simple. The only difficult aspect was cleaning the dishes afterward. Koreans are fond of having dozens of small dishes littering the table at all times. Each vegetable also had to be seasoned and cooked separately which naturally increased the size of our dirty dish pile.

The vegetables we used for our Royal Bibimbap were:

-3 dried shiitake mushrooms
-1 cucumber
-100g Chinese bellflowers
-100g brackens
-100g bean sprouts

Of course, Chinese bellflowers and brackens are not commonly eaten in the U.S. (although they may be lurking in your backyard) so feel free to substitue any vegetables you like such as carrots, asparagus or potatoes. Chinese bellflower is actually a pretty perennial (only the roots are eaten by Koreans) and brackens are the young fiddleheads of a common species of fern.

Other ingredients we used were four bowls of rice, 100g of ground beef, 100g of fish fillets a little seaweed and two eggs.

The best thing I took from the cooking demonstration was a simple traditional meat sauce:

(For every 100g meat, if you are into the whole measurement thing)

-1T soy sauce
-1/2T sugar
-1T crushed garlic
-2t chopped spring onion
-1t sesame oil
-1t sesame seeds
-pinch of black pepper

We put this sauce separately on the ground beef and the dried mushrooms (which had been reconstituted in water). Since we were working with cooked ground beef, we only threw the sauce on for a few minutes before re-heating in the pan. Ditto for the mushrooms. I suppose if you were marinating a big Omaha steak you may want to leave it on a little longer. I have since used the sauce on a flayed pork loin. I only had it marinating in the sauce for 15 or 30 minutes- just until I was finished with whatever else I was making. It turned out pretty good.

As I mentioned, we were instructed to marinate and cook each of the vegetables separately, the "traditional" way.

The brackens and bellflowers were cleaned, thinly cut, washed in salty water and quickly parboiled before being fried. The beansprouts were given the same treatment, but left intact. The cucumber was cut in half lengthwise, finely chopped, salted and squeezed dry through a cheese cloth. The bellflowers and brackens were sauced with a sauce exactly like the meat sauce except the measurements were a little different (and don't ask me why but they used a different kind of soy sauce: soy sauce for soup).

Sauce for Chinese bellflowers and brackens:

-2t soy sauce for soup
-2t crushed garlic
-2t green onion
-1t sesame oil
-pinch of black pepper

The bean sprouts were sauced with the following:
1/2t chopped spring onion
1/4t crushed garlic
1/2t sesame oil
1/2t sesame seed
pinch of salt

The cucumber was not seasoned besides the initial salting and all vegetables were fried separately except the bean sprouts- those were only boiled.

Lastly, the fish fillets were seasoned with salt and white pepper, egged, floured, fried and thinly cut.

The remaining meat and vegetables are then placed on top of the rice to create a colorful pattern known as taeguk- a variation on the yin and yang. The traditional colors of taeguk are red, blue, yellow, black and white. I don't really see it when I look at a bowl of bibimbap, but I guess you have to use your imagination.

Finally, we got to eat our creation. There was lots of kochujang to go around and, I must admit, our bibimbap was even tastier than airplane food.