kimchi recipe (and bonus essay)

(click on picture to enlarge)

As I've said before, I don't care for kimchi. It's not that I don't like spicy food, as most Koreans seem to believe is the only reason foreigners could possibly not like "the most delicious and healthy food in Korea." (See essay at the end of this entry.) I love spicy Mexican and Thai food, just to name my two favorite cuisines. Kimchi is slimy and sour, in addition to being spicy. I've been told that if I keep eating it, I'll eventually grow to like it and even become addicted. To which I reply, why would I want to force myself to become addicted to something?

Many people (including Matthew) do like kimchi, however, and might be interested in making the stinky (seriously, when Matthew opens a jar at home, I start inspecting the boys' diapers to see who made Mommy a present), slimy stuff. A new Korean teacher at Matthew's school wrote out the recipe for him. This is a bit amazing, since most Koreans I've asked don't know how to make kimchi themselves. Their mothers or mothers-in-law do all the kimchi-making. I wonder if it's becoming a lost art among the younger generation of Koreans.

I will do my best to type it below, in case you have difficulties reading the photograph above. Some parts do not entirely make sense to me. Some quantities/amounts she added in to the original directions. I don't really think 2 c of red pepper powder means 2 cups, maybe 2 ccs. Also, she doesn't say anything about letting it ferment. Maybe you can figure it out. Think of it as a culinary adventure.


Kimchi Recipe (by Jane)

1. Cut the cabbage into quarters.

2. Spread salt on the cabbage. And let it be 4-5 hours. (The salt should be bigger one like this [sample salt is taped to page] One handful of salt per 3 quarters of cabbage)

And Now Let's make Sauce
([for] 3 cabbage) Get ready --> Red pepper powder (2 c), well minced garlic (7-8), well minced green onion (3), salted fish juice (2 table spoon per one quarter of cabbage), sugar (2 tablespoon), salted shrimp (2T), 1 fresh oyster, 1 onion, 1 pear or apple.

3. Put onion and pear in the blender.

4. Put everything in a bowl and mix well.

5. Pour half cup of water in a pan, and put 2 tablespoon of wheat flour. Boil it with low temperature. Keep stir it. When it looks like glue. Then stay it to get cold. And then mix with the sauce.

Sauce Ready!

6. Wash off the cabbage and let it water drip.

[illustration of cabbage on a wicker tray]
(It'll take 3 hours to dry.)

7. Finally spread the sauce on the cabbage. Yummy~

[And then an illustration at the bottom. It's apparently Matthew as Dr. House from "House MD," yielding a scalpel and proclaiming, "I'm a surgern." Hmmm...maybe an allusion to his ambition to become an MD? Or maybe she thinks his personality is like House?]



Finally, as promised, a middle school student's essay that I corrected this week. The prompt was, "Does Kimchi have medicinal properties beyond fresh fruits and vegetables at increasing the body's resistance to swine flu, the HIV virus, and other diseases?" I'm typing out the student's original response, without corrections. (Although there are some errors and the student doesn't actually answer the question, you have to admit this student's mastery of a foreign language is pretty darn good for middle school, an age when many American students haven't even begun learning a second language.)

Kimchi has been the most delicious and healthy food in Korea. Many Americans hate to eat it because it's too spicy. However, they will start to it at once if they know how good Kimchi is.

First of all, Kimchi is a anti-cancer food. Many healthy ingredients are included in Kimchi such as cabbage which prevents intenstine cancer and garlic which prevents stomach cancer. those who don't want to get cancer really should eat Kimchi.

In addition to that, Kimchi is a vitamin-containing food. Besides, when Kimchi is passing through the fermenting stage, containment of vitamin increases up to over two times than initial containment of vitamin.

What is more, Kimchi is a low calory food. It contains a lot of eatable fiber. Thus, it prevents and treat all kind of adult diseases like diabetes, heart diseases and fat, etc.

Now you see how healthy you would be to eat Kimchi. I'm proud of my ancestor who invented a laudable food -- Kimchi. I highly recommend people to eat Kimchi, and hope they like it.

my korean coop list

Since I'm planning to "fly the coop" in just under five weeks , I've begun composing a "coop list" (my version of a "bucket list") of things I want to do or try before then. (I may write a post later about why I'm leaving prematurely. Matthew is staying until the end of the year and may keep up this blog.)

So far the two I've accomplished have been food related. Both items are uniquely Korean, or at least uniquely Asian, food combinations you just won't find in the U.S., or at least I've never seen them there.

The first is 피자 돈까스 (pizza donkkaseu) a variation on tonkatsu (Japanese breaded, fried pork cutlet). Regular donkkaseu has been a comfort food favorite for most of my time in Korea. I wasn't so sure about the addition of pizza cheese (mozzarella) and (in one of the versions I tried) corn would make it better. It actually does. I had to order it a third time, just so I could take a picture. The first time, we ordered in and I was so hungry by the time the food came that I couldn't wait long enough to take a picture. The second time, I ended up with take-out (that's what happens when two moms with two toddlers and two babies try to dine out), so it was already cut into bite-size pieces. (Most Koreans apparently do not own knives and forks, so take-out is made to be eaten with the chopsticks and spoons that everyone is sure to have.) I think I'm done now, though. Consuming that much fat in one meal does not sit very well with my stomach.

Pizza donkkaseu (served with rice, room temperature corn, cherry tomatoes, and shredded cabbage with pink sauce (AKA ghetto 1000 Island; ketchup & mayonnaise):



A close up of the cheesy goodness inside. Another version is called 치즈 돈까스 (cheese donkkaseu) which has a slice of processed cheese (i.e. "American" cheese) either on top or inside. No thanks.



My second "I really have to try that before I leave Korea" food was a corn dog and fries...together...like one solid piece. I don't actually know what it's called. I always see them being served up at carts near the beach or stands at Mt. Seorak. At first, I thought it just looked weird. Another variation on the corn dog here includes dipping the finished product in chocolate and sprinkles. Seriously. But the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. Why bother having two separate items when you could just have a complete meal on a stick? Y'know...minus any actual vegetables -- do fried potatoes really count? -- or fruit or...well, you get the idea. Health food this is not. (Note the concerned look on Rowan's face. Liam doesn't really want anything to do with it.)



The vendors prepare them ahead of time, then fry it again to freshen it up a bit, before drizzling ketchup over the concoction and serving. Liam almost...but not quite...took a bite. Again, it was actually pretty good, but I don't plan to eat it again because it's not exactly (how you say?) "good for me."



As for the rest of my list, the parts I haven't done yet...there's only one thing:
see a palace or something similarly historic and royal and stuff
I've wanted to do this for a long time. On our one-week, whirlwind tour of the peninsula (or at least the coastline) in July 2006, we went to 경복궁(Gyeongbokgung), but were foiled by torrential rain. 창덕궁 (Changdeokgung) is actually supposed to be more impressive, but can only be seen on a guided tour (3 per day according to Lonely Planet). We'll be in Seoul two weekends from now with my in-laws, so I'm hoping to tour one of those (or another, if anyone has a recommendation) then.

I've been told repeatedly that I should visit a 찜질방 (Jjimjilbang -- public bath house), but I'm just not interested. To say that I'm not into public nudity is an understatement. I waived my P.E. requirements in high school, not because of religious reasons as the waiver request said, but because I HATED showering in front of my classmates. I know that I should be over that now that I'm over thirty and have gone through pregnancy and birth twice, but the idea of old Korean ladies staring at me, and possibly poking and prodding my wobbly bits (a friend has a hilarious, but horrifying story of her jjimjilbang experience) does not excite me.

If anyone has suggestions of other things I should do/see while I'm here, I'd love to hear them. (Just as long as they don't involve public nudity.)

and more bugs!

While walking along the coast this weekend, Matthew spotted a preying mantis. They're amazingly calm and curious creatures.



This one climbed across Matthew's back, but totally escaped the notice of Rowan, who was riding in the Ergo. Oh, well...probably best for the mantis to escape notice.



The mantis is on Matthew's finger:




And, some less fortunate bugs, as seen today at Mt. Seorak:



Yes, it probably is what you think it is...fried grasshoppers. (Click on the picture for a closer view.) Several Koreans who walked by while Matthew was taking pictures expressed some disgust, so it's not like ALL Koreans like them...unlike 번데기 (beondegi).



Disclaimer: That last bit was a joke, about all Koreans liking beondegi. But I've been told that schoolchildren love them, and besides being sold fresh in hiking areas and near schools throughout the country, one can buy them canned at the grocery store. So, obviously SOMEONE in Korea likes to eat silkworm pupae.

drugs!

The way medication is prescribed and packaged here is fascinating to me.

First of all, most doctors only prescribe 2 or 3 days worth of medicine at a time. Supposedly this is because doctors want to check the patient's progress and adjust the dosage accordingly. This makes sense, but there's not likely to be much progress made at such short intervals. Especially after the first round or two of medication (for myself and the boys), I've always been told things are "slightly improved," and been given the same prescription. It takes several visits before the symptoms are "much improved" or any changes are made to the prescription. My cynical side hypothesizes that the doctors like to bill back as many office visits as possible to the national health care system. These frequent visits don't affect me (much) financially as the fees (I think co-pay would be a correct label) are very low (as are the medicine costs). However, as a mother of very young children, I find these frequent visits incredibly inconvenient. We've found that if you (read: Matthew) put a little pressure on the doctors, they'll prescribe medication for longer periods.

The medication below was prescribed by the ear, nose and throat specialist who treated Rowan and I for sinus and ear infections in July.

For adults, instead of being given various bottles of pills with instructions on each bottle, the medication is packaged together. You take the contents of one little packet all at once.

Here's my medication for two days. I was supposed to take the contents of one packet three times per day. [I didn't take the entire contents, though, because I am a horrible patient. My beloved pharmacist explained what each one was. I chose not to take some of them because either (a) I felt they were unnecessary or (b) they were not breastfeeding compatible.]



For children, the medication is a little more complicated. I had to mix four different ingredients (three liquids and a powdered antibiotic) together into a not-very-tasty cocktail, which was not fun to administer. The pharmacist labeled each bottle with the amount per dose (2 or 3 ccs three times per day). The pink liquid (an antipyretic) is labeled "fever" and the white is labeled "cool," as it needed to be kept in the refrigerator.

bugs!

Maybe we're weird, but one of our favorite things about summer in Korea is the appearance of cicadas...except when they land on our balcony screens early in the morning. We don't have cicadas in our part of the U.S. and the most dominant species in the U.S. have very long life cycles, so they only appear every seven years or more. The Korean cicadas apparently employ a method of survival called "predator satiation," meaning that there are so damn many of them, some are bound to survive. And there are so damn many of them. And they're loud...at least the males are. They're the ones who make the crazy "whaa-whaa-whaaahaaahaaahaaahaaa...." noise. (Explanation of cicada song and sample sound recordings here.)

The Korean name for cicadas is 매미 (may-me), and the kids around our apartment complex hunt them with butterfly nets. Matthew picks them up with his bare hands to show them to Liam, which I think horrifies some of the kids. Seriously, Koreans of all ages are pretty skittish around bugs. (To the point of silliness. I had to "save" a college-age girl from a fuzzy caterpillar last summer, which her boyfriend was trying to beat off of her pant leg. Pregnant foreigner saves caterpillar. Classic.)

cicada blending in with tree:


and his not-so-bright cousin standing out on a rock at Mt. Seorak


the cicada I startled off a tree, which decided Matthew looked like a good spot to hang out...for several blocks:


me holding that same cicada after we got it off Matthew's shirt:


Dragonflies (draggy-plies in Liam-speak) are also abundant here in the summer. They're friendly little guys, very curious about human beings. Our friend J.E. tells a great rendition of her battle through a swarm of dragonflies at Mt. Seorak. It involves her covering her face to keep them out of her orifices.

Here's one lone dragonfly hanging out on a bridge at Mt. Seorak:


random weird bug on a tree near our apartment:


the white things are caterpillars:


There are a ton of different caterpillars here, ranging from flashy to brilliantly camouflaged. Matthew took his hands-on "after class" class on a "nature walk" (quotations used because it was down the sidewalk) one day to see a variety of insects (cicadas, caterpillars, etc.) that blend into their environs. He had randomly discovered at least three varieties of caterpillars skillfully blending into the sparse landscaping in front of a bedding shop.

The exception to the general queasiness about bugs here are boys and their beetles. Japanese rhinoceros beetles (AKA "fighting beetles") are sold in the pet department at E-Mart (and I'm sure other places, too). While we were out taking pictures of the cicadas one morning, we came across a boy and his pet beetle at the playground. He even posed his beetle so that I could take a better picture of it:


...but this picture gives a better perspective of the actual size of the beetle (it's perched on the boy's thumb) as it "meets" a cicada held by Matthew:

baekdamsa: third time's a charm

Our first attempt to visit Baekdamsa, a temple on the other side of Mt. Seorak National Park, was last year during our summer vacation. We would have had to wait hours for a bus that really wouldn't have taken us very near the site at all, so we caught a bus to Gangneung instead.

We tried again last fall. We rented a car and stayed at "Happy Road" with J.E., but it was while the autumn leaves were changing colors and half of Korea seemed to have the same idea. Saturday, we couldn't even get near the shuttle bus parking lot. Sunday, the traffic was backed up onto the highway.

Since this week was our summer break, we avoided both of our prior mistakes by going on a weekday and renting a car, and actually made it to our destination.

After parking, we stopped to pick up some snacks and let Liam explore the river. Matthew ended up buying a bottle of beer (Hite, which tastes like shite, rather that Cass, which tastes like ass...), which we drank at one of the tables over looking the river,


while Liam played,


then Matthew joined him for old fashioned rock throwing.


Cars are not allowed on the road leading to the temple, and for good reason. Most of it is narrow and winding. I have never heard people applaud a bus driver's skills before, but then again, I haven't spent any time on Korean tour buses. We did pass a few people who had chosen to walk up or back, but most pay the W2,000 per adult (W1,000 per child) EACH WAY to take the bus. (So we paid roughly $10 for Matthew, Liam & I. Highway robbery.)


Liam and I (with Rowan sleeping in the Ergo) at the entrance.


Liam inspects the wishing candles. We had to convince him that he was not supposed to blow them out like birthday candles.


These are the tiles which people pay to write a message on: a prayer, a blessing, "KimTaeHoon wuz here," etc.


Liam's first attempt at flashing ubiquitous peace signs, or as J.E. calls them, "kimchi fingers." Isn't five better than two?


Liam getting water from the temple spring.


A peak inside the temple, while my child glows in an unearthly manner.


I love the roof details on Korean Buddhist buildings.


The unusually cool, wet summer has been good for the flora.


Overall, the temple was a disappointment, after all the hype. The most remarkable feature was the mostly-dry river bed. Koreans have this obsession with stacking rocks and this locale provides them with ample opportunity to do so. From our understanding, it's a Buddhist practice to illustrate the idea that everything is temporary; anything humans build will eventually fall down. Liam tries to help them learn that lesson, but we usually interfere.


Liam explores, while a family in the background builds together.


Liam puts into perspective the height of some of the stacks.


Finally, he finds something a little more his speed: throwing rocks into the river with "hyung" (older brother).


Rowan wakes up from his nap.


Matthew poses with an unwilling Liam.


A rock carved with hangul on the way back to the shuttle bus.


Since we were already running late to meet J.E. at Happy Road, we didn't even attempt the hike beyond the temple. Apparently, this is quite impressive, and might have made the trip more worthwhile. Instead we waited in line for too long, with a smug old man who seemed to be talking schmack about us, before riding the bus back to our car.

My advice: If you want to visit Baekdamsa, allow the better part of the day, bring decent beer, and do the hike up past the temple.

ten signs it's time to leave korea

10. every time you hear the phrase, "Waegookin imnida!" (It's a foreigner!), your middle finger starts itching.

9. you're tempted to tell people who want to take pictures of you or your children, "Poto, manwon" (photo, 10 bucks!) and those wanting to practice their English with you, while you're trying to watch your child, "Yeonga-lur, sahm-ship-boon, ee-man-o-cheon-won" (English, 30 minutes, 25 bucks.)

8. you hold your breath every time your toddler runs up to a group of "kids! kids!," waiting to see how they'll respond to the blond-haired, blue-eyed foreign "baby."

7. you teach your toddler the phrase "babo (foolish/stupid) kids," as a response to kids who run away or otherwise don't want to play with him.

6. you start to take offense at stupid things, like "egg-ee" (which applies to any child up to the age of 3, whereas "agg-ee" is more specifically an infant) being translated as "baby," or kids always saying, "c'mon, baby," which is a phrase from a popular k-pop song.

5. you're exhausted from running interference for your child every time you're in public.

4. you've begun to openly mock kimchi, which Koreans view as a wondrous cure-all.

3. you actually consider saying, "an-chua shiball imnida" (it's not f***ing cold) to women who insist your baby is under-dressed for a breezy day in the 70s.

2. you interpret the ear-nose-throat specialist's attempts at "enlarging your nasal passage" as blatant xenophobia.

1. some days you think if you hear one more child whine like a police siren, you're going to lose it.