Catie: I guess you could say it's been a while.

But can I just note that I have been very busy.

Number 1.) Knitting.

Number 2.) Cooking some stuff.

Number 3.) Failing at all baking endeavors.

Number 4.) Knitting more things I want to have.

Number 5.) Organizing the kitchen, living room and bedroom intermittently.

Number 6.) Cleaning out and setting up the spare room to become a makeshift pantry. (All right, I haven't exactly done this yet, but soon I will be very busy doing it, so it is my excuse for next time.)

See how busy I have been?

Answer: So very.

Yes, you are right.

Things I have knit:

1. a pair of slipper clogs for The Benjamin.

2. a pair of socks for me.

3. ...half of another pair of socks.  also for me.

4. still MORE on my red, cabled cowl scarf and no, it is not done yet, believe me, I will be the first to tell you when that bane of my very existence is finally DONE.

5. half a pair of one slipper clog for me.  I got bored.  yes, yes, I got bored.  probably because, for this pair, I didn't have a husband waiting for slippers.

6. a red and blue elephant.

7. a red and blue octopus.

8. a happy little fox.

9: three weird looking balls.

10. a felted handle for a basket/makeshift drawer that contains kitchen utensils and lives under a riser on the kitchen table/makeshift counter top.

11. a little felted bag with a button hole that hangs on a hook near the sink and is filled with every rubber band in existence.  It's a cute bag and I needed those rubber bands off my counter.  I'd normally put them in a drawer, but Koreans don't like drawers, and we only have two, both housed in our wardrobe.  So, there is a ledge along the back of the kitchen sink, under the window, and I kept them there in a little box.  But they kept collecting odd food particles as well as always getting tangled up in the green robot man that I found under the fridge a few months ago who managed to make his way into the rubber band box.  Anyway, it was just TOO much.  So, I knit a wall-bag (and I coined the term "wall-bag").  Mostly in public, while out and about.  Korean women always think I'm knitting hats.  Always.  They point at my hands and they hit their heads saying all kinds of things in Korean and then, in Korean, I say "No, no." (since that is just about the extent of my second language skills) and then I say, "Bag.  Is bag." (like if I speak in broken English they'll be better able to understand) and I make the motion that seems to be Korean speak for "shopping bag", which means moving my hands from a cupping gesture, outward and up to sort of outline the bottom of a bag.  Then they look at me like I've just lost my mind because who makes shopping bags that small and.. then they give me a nod and pat their head one more time, saying the word for "hat".  Just making sure I'm really looney.  And I smile and they leave and anyway, now it's done.  So, they don't think I'm crazy for making tiny shopping bags, just for wearing birkenstocks in the winter and for leaving the house in a very light drizzle without an umbrella.

13. a calorimetry.  it turned out waaay big, but I wear it anyway.

14. I just-just finished my first pair of endpaper mitts yesterday.  it may possibly be true that I have been lusting after them in an unnaturally disturbing sort of way.  possibly.  but, now they are finished.

I think those are pretty much all my recent projects.  I am now working on a second pair of endpaper mitts (they were the funnest thing I've made in a long time), the half-done sock and NOT the bane of my existence.  Oh, and also my 1/4 finished clogs, which are cute colors.  red-orange and pale turquoise.

It is late now and the light is bad, so I do not have pictures for you, but I am planning on taking some of, you know, things.

We didn't cook much in December. It was busy and crazy and we just ended up eating out a lot.  To the complete detriment of our health.  But, through many fits of digestive illness, we have again begun to cook at home.  This time, I've been paying a lot more attention to our healthier American food options like whole wheat spaghetti and fresh frozen green beans instead of canned, etc...  Eating American in Korea can be difficult (although I'd venture to say we're quite adept at this point), but eating healthy American is even more difficult.  However, there is a lot of brown rice, some frozen alternatives to canned vegetables, yummy yogurts (waaay too many yogurts), soy products, awesome tofu and the best produce and eggs anywhere.  Now I just need to figure out which greens are what so we can make salads.  None of them make sense to me and all of them look like the weeds you pull out of your garden.  Some of them taste like them, too, and that is gross.

Today, we found some good frozen vegetables at Costco.  This is nice only because the combination includes broccoli and cauliflower, two vegetables we either can't find or refuse to eat (cauliflower = nowhere to be found, broccoli = tastes like the smell of new tires mixed with moldy navel oranges).  We eat lots of zucchini and I think I may have found beets the other day which could be interesting.  I've been craving a chocolate beet cake.

Anyway.  I have to go... you know, do something.  Like I usually do.

- catie

Catie: I don't know, maybe everything, I guess.

[caption id="attachment_375" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Do you like my illustration? ..............i think i might stick to knitting as a pastime."][/caption]

Taco soup = pretty delicious.

I combined a couple recipes to make it.  One for a tortilla soup and one for a chicken taco soup, and it turned out nice, containing:

One can each:

Diced tomatoes

Tomato paste

Corn

and..

1 c. black beans/pinto beans mixed (approx.)

3 cloves garlic, minced (no granulated garlic yet - I actually bought some, "garlic powder" that was, well, garlic powder.  Literally powder.  I'm afraid to use it in much of anything and since garlic practically comes out everyone's ears -- or out their pores, at least -- I just use the fresh stuff mostly)

One quarter of a yellow onion I had in the fridge

1/2 a chicken cooked for stock and picked clean

1 teaspoon each:

Rosemary

Thyme

Basil

a bunch of chili powder (yay, mom!), maybe 2-3 tablespoons

a bunch of cumin (I'd never realized that cumin is what makes tacos smell like tacos and it's what makes them TASTE like tacos, too, it's delicious!)

and probably other stuff I forgot.

We topped it with cheese, sour cream and crunched up tortilla chips, a delicacy that is neither difficult to find, nor very delicate.  The things are as tough as beef jerky and I don't know who that Indian is on the bag, but what's a Native American doing on my tortilla chips?

Mmhm.

I think the main problem is that you'll find tortilla chips at every grocery store (for nearly 6,000W), but I could swear not a single Korean has a clue what to do with them.  Must be just for us.

But if they are just for us... why doesn't anybody ask us which kind we like?

Democratic country.... psh.  I don't think so!

In other news.

MY PIE GREW!  It was like the miracle of the previous miraculous pie dough was visited upon my chicken pot pie dough!

Only, when your pie crust grows -- and I mean literally, GROWS -- it's less exciting and more frustrating!  Although, maybe that's only true of me, the ever visual cook, who likes everything to look pretty as well as taste good.

I even cut hearts out in it!  Trust me, this pie was freakin' cute before the miracle of the dud dough was visited upon its tender flesh.

[caption id="attachment_368" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Some miracle. Hmph."][/caption]

As you can see, it is swollen, lumpy, and shapeless.

However..... did it taste delicious!!

It was SO yummy and SO flaky and delicious!  Sort of like eating a pot pie made of filo dough or.. or like a croissant filled with pot pie.

YUM.

Aaron got real sick this week and came home with Ben one night to borrow some of our Nyquil (correction: Fake-quil from Wal-Mart) and I sent him home with a piece of chicken pot pie.

The next day, I went into Ewha to shadow his classes and the first thing he said was, "That pot pie was DELICIOUS."

The next thing that was said was from Brian, who shouted.  And then was very angry the rest of the day that he had not also received pie.

[caption id="attachment_370" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Looks like mush, but it was nice."][/caption]

I told him he'd have to get sick first.

He said he had been sick just the week before.

I said he hadn't come to my door looking sad and pathetic.

He said he had to go back to America and then he left.

And now he's in Portland and we're ALL jealous and it's like he did it JUST because I didn't give him any pot pie!

And I guess he didn't.

But it's like he did.

That is the middle and I didn't realize that all a chicken pot pie is made up of is crust, chicken, vegetables and chicken gravy.  They're SO easy to make!

And with all the chicken stock I cooked up, I will have many more opportunities.

On allrecipes.com (which is a nice website but has been infiltrated with a lot of, "easy" and "modern" cooking that's sometimes irritating), all the pot pie recipes called for 'cream of' soups (cream of chicken, cream of mushroom).  I knew people made pot pies before cream ofs came in cans, so I kept looking for the real thing, and finally found it.

Chicken gravy is ridiculously fast and easy, too.  Practically as fast and easy as opening a can.  So, it was worth it.

[caption id="attachment_371" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Brand new sockies!"][/caption]

Beyond chicken pot pie -- hard, I know, who wants to move beyond a MIRACULOUS (some would even saying HEALING) chicken pot pie? -- we have knitting.

Almost as exciting.

These are Ben's new socks.

They were knit with GOLF Print, another Italian brand from.. Filatura di Grignasco.  It's 70% virgin wool (I don't understand what the "virgin" is for except maybe that it comes from sheep who've been shorn for the first time?), 30% acrylic (not virgin).

It was fine to work with, I guess.  Although, last week, at our new favorite Starbucks, I got really excited about turning the heel of the second sock and -- somewhat hyped up on half a grande caramel macchiato (a drink I never drank until I quit Sbux) -- my hands got real sweaty and the yarn got a little squeaky with acrylic which was gross.  I hate, hate, hate squeaky yarn.  I'm hope that they won't be too sweaty, but it's the only sock-ish yarn I've come across here at all, so I compromised all my values.  An action I may later be struck down for by the mighty hand of.. natural consequence?

Also knitting the following:

A wrap inspired by THIS one.  There's a better picture of it at Ravelry, which is the one I chose my cables based upon, but you can't get into Ravelry without an account, which is cumbersome and on and on.  Basically, I saw the scarf and then I found some similar cables and just, you know, cast on, knitted five inches, ripped the whole thing out, started over and now I'm to.. maybe six inches again?  Maybe 7.  I'm happy with it this time.  I like the actual pattern's small cable better than the one I was able to scrounge up off the internet, but mine is okay, too and it's the actual scarf I like, so in the end it's all the same.

The dishcloth is my poor man's project.

Is that string, you ask?

Why, yes, it is.

At Good Morning Mart, right next to the counter, there are these hanks of white string.  Since the very first time I saw them I have been thinking to myself that I wanted to knit something out that string.

I am not sure what it's meant for.  My first guess was just for trussing poultry, but they don't have ovens here, really, and don't eat much meat either, especially chicken which is very expensive.  So, I think it might be for threading (the thing where they pluck your eyebrows with twisted thread -- so confusing).  It's right next to a bunch of other hygiene-type products.

Regardless.

Today we are poor enough that I bought the string (1,700W for a ton of it!), and, back at our new favorite Starbucks (where they served us simply terrible drinks! maybe next time...), I pulled it all apart, discovered it was two hanks looped into one, and wound one hank into a ball.  A task that took ages.

The string is TINY.  And when I say TINY in caps, what I really mean is tiny in tiny letters, but we don't have tiny letters.

I'm holding it double for better weight and knitting it on size 1 needles, which are pretty small, but it's turning out really nice.  I like the more delicate texture and weight of the dishcloth as opposed to one knit out of the regular dishcloth, worsted weight cotton.  It just feels so, you know, delicate.

And that's it.  We need to watch Northern Exposure (our new faaave show -- well, mine anyway!) and probably go to sleep or something equally as LAME and unexciting.

WE MISS YOU!

- catie

Catie: Pumpkin pie and chicken stock.

[caption id="attachment_358" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="pumpkin pie in the crousty."][/caption]

Here's our pie!

Between baking and then rapidly consuming the pie, I forgot to take any pictures of it out of the oven and actually baked, but there it is IN the oven.

It turned out surprisingly delicious.

I've made a lot of pies before, but never pumpkin (I avoid it when... well, when I'm not out of the country and desperate for ANY pie at all), so that was new in itself.  It was easy, though.

I tried a, "Baking Powder Miracle Pie Dough" against my better judgement.  It had the word, "miracle" in it!  I had to see if it was really miraculous.

Turns out... not so much.

The pie crust I would make at home has half lard, half butter and is delicious and tender and nice.

The "miracle" crust was.. hard.

Not to mention gross and weird.

And so, in future, I will stick with MY recipe.  Not miraculous ones.

I also found out the Crousty doesn't cook evenly at all.  This is fine.  I mean, already I'm asking too much of our poor Crousty toaster oven.  I think I can manage to turn things halfway through.  It's just good to know.  And the pie was still good, just a little brown on one side.

Yay!  Thank you, my mom, for the spices!

Tomorrow (Tuesday) and Wednesday, I'm shadowing Aaron at school to figure out how to do things when he leaves for the US (I don't envy that plane ride -- ugh).  I was supposed to go today, but the school has just developed a "CNN" debate class that starts this term.

And, yes, apparently it is patterned after The CNN.  Although, I guess they got weirded out when Aaron tried introducing debate to the debate class.

"Why do you not teach them from the book?" or something along those lines was said.

But why would you have a debate class and no debate?

Welcome to Korea!

Anyway, Aaron doesn't teach the CNN class on Mondays, so I'm waiting to go until Wednesday, when I'll get to see how the CNN class runs.

Since we'll both be gone and out of the house for two days, I am cooking lots of food today.  Which is really relative, because, in Korea, you can't cook lots of food at once.  There are only small pots, small pans, and small ovens.

In light of this, I'm making two dinners.  A chicken pot pie (if all goes well) and chicken taco soup.  Together, I think these will hold us over for lunches and dinners for two days.

The chicken taco soup calls for (of course) chicken broth.  And I've seen Swanson chicken broth at the gourmet market in Dunsan-dong, but that is far away and I didn't feel like hopping a bus and braving the TimeWorld Galleria crowds today.  We did it Saturday and again on Sunday (all three of our Starbucks are located within a block of TimeWorld Galleria), so I'm not feeling up to it again.  I even tried to bribe myself with this delicious wrap they have there -- it's this tortilla filled with chicken, a red cabbage/green cabbage coleslaw type mix, onions, tomato, yogurt sauce, sweet, spicy red sauce and mustard and it is A-MAZING, if spicy -- but to no avail as that would only have made the trip more expensive and, therefore, less appealing.

So, I'm making my own chicken stock.

SCARY.

I've never made chicken stock.  Plus, I thought I'd found celery at the store, but it turns out I didn't, it was just MORE of the giant green onions.  They look so much alike.

What I wanna know is: HOW MANY ONIONS DOES ONE COUNTRY NEED?

Apparently, a lot.

So, it's celery-less.  Hopefully that's fine.  It'll have to be fine.

Turns out chicken stock is easy, so I doubt anything will go wrong.

In better food-finding news, I did find vinegar!

Actually, to give credit where credit is due, Ben found vinegar.

It was located, at Good Morning Mart, right below the corn syrup.  Just where you'd hope to find vinegar.  Along side something sickeningly sweet.  Actually, maybe that's where it would be in America, I think it was just the language barrier that really got me.  All English is in teeny, tiny letters at the bottoms of labels, so you don't immediately see it.  Plus, I tend to get self conscious quickly as Korean grocery stores are full of over zealous, over helpful staff and when I stand too long in one spot, staring, I'm always afraid I'll be accosted in Korean by a nice lady in a yellow shirt and orange apron who doesn't know what, "I'm just looking," means, nor, "Where the heck is your vinegar?"

I need to learn Korean.

What's the Korean word for, "vinegar"?

I got it though.  I'm not sure what kind of vinegar it is.  I wanted distilled white.  This is a little yellow, but it seemed like the most generic kind they had and it's perfectly fine as far as I can tell.  Maybe it's.. distilled yellow vinegar.

The more I cook, the more I long for American grocery store shelves, with their predictable order, their aisle numbers, their helpful signs and familiar ingredients.

Still, the hunt is challenging, and that in itself is fun.  Plus, I get to learn to make my own ingredients.

Like French's french fried onions, evaporated milk.  And chicken stock.

Let you know how all this goes!

- catie

Catie: Speculoos?

[caption id="attachment_327" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Speculaas."][/caption]

When we were kids, we used to eat these windmill cookies.  Sometimes they were shaped like other things, but mostly windmills.  So, that was what we called them, windmill cookies.  They were fun because they are dry and crunchy, so you can nibble and eat them really slowly.  Also they're windmills and they have holes in them.  Cookies with holes are fun.

Now that I am very old and eat them less because of their shape and more for their taste (a little like gingerbread), I have learned to call them, "Speculaas", the Dutch name.  It's a fun word to say.

But funner to EAT.

Today, I took the bus to LotteMart (it's like a 15 minute walk, but I get SO cold!  And there isn't a bus stop on the other side of the street to take me home again, so I do have to walk back...) to get some whipping cream for the pumpkin pie I'll make tomorrow and a couple other things and I was walking down the cookie aisle to get to the registers (btw, this is NEVER a good idea) when I spotted THESE.

[caption id="attachment_329" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Speculoos!"][/caption]

Advertised as Speculoos (apparently, the Flemish name for such cookies), they came in a long sleeve, all individually wrapped (sadly, not shaped like windmills, but I didn't even notice at the time) and I had to buy them.

I heart Speculaas at Christmastime because they're spicy and they're just really good holiday cookies.  I was so surprised to see them!

Also, they are very good with coffee and tea (if only they HAD very good coffee and tea here...) and I have -- maybe -- already eaten six of them.

Ben will be lucky if there are any left when he gets home! :D

- catie

Catie: Pretty persimmons

[caption id="attachment_305" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="My three persimmons."][/caption]

Yesterday, I bought three persimmons for making something persimmon-y.  The most popular things made from persimmons in the western world seem to be persimmon cookies and pudding.  In Korea, it's really hard to say.  I think they do a lot more raw-eating of persimmons than most people in America would dream of doing.  Perhaps mostly because a lot of Americans have no idea what a persimmon really is.

I think they're a nice looking fruit.  At our grocery store, DreamMart (which should really be called Good Morning Mart, but the Korean word for, "Good Morning" sounds like, "Dream") we occasionally get them confused with tomatoes because they're displayed upside down, so just their roundy little bottoms show and (sadly, for us), their orange sort of color is the same color as the rock-hard, never-ripe tomatoes they sell here.  Although, as it gets colder, the tomatoes get greener, so it's becoming increasingly easier to tell the difference.

We just hope they're better than the tomatoes.

It's only getting colder here and while we keep our windows open to counteract our over-compensating water/floor heater, the Koreans turn their heat to 80 C and leave it there.  We've done more sweating since it got cold than before, when it was hot outside!

We were pretty afraid they might not heat their buses, but now I have to put on a long sleeved shirt, my fleece jacket, a scarf, my double layer wool hat and gloves to stand at the bus stop, and then take them off inside the bus, just to put them right back on once we get out.  Koreans leave all theirs on, though.  And, literally, it's about 80 degrees on that bus.

Yeah, you think I'm exaggerating, but I am not.

On Friday, I made 60 Minute Rolls, also known as DeeDee's One Hour Buns, which, really, is totally a better name.  Anytime you have the choice to say a phrase with, "DeeDee" in it, you really should.  These opportunities don't arise very often.

I've only seen one kind of yeast here, a turkish yeast, "Pakmaya".

Very aptly named.

It's an instant yeast, which is kind of nice.  Some people seem to swear by instant yeast.  But, apparently, there is no way to test whether or not it's alive.  Sure, they'll tell you about 1,500 different ways to test it, but it will fail every single of them and, in the end, still make DeeDee's buns rise.

I tried to foam tepid sugar water.

I tried to foam warm sugar water.

I tried to foam sugar water that was probably too warm.

I even tried mixing flour, sugar and water and waiting an hour to see if it would rise -- although the problem with that was mostly just that I got too impatient and decided to go ahead, regardless.

Finally, I mixed up a batch of dough and started kneading it, kneading it, kneading it.  I was probably 5 -6 minutes into the 10 minute process when I realized that our grimy table was griming my DeeDees!

I wash that thing every day, too, so don't think it's anything I've done to it.  It just has this weird black top with a gray splatter paint sort of pattern and I think the gray comes off, because it turns all my dishcloths gray and has since we moved in, I just didn't even think about it!

So, I made another batch -- argh -- and kneaded it on a big white tray we have that came with our cozy little... bingo parlor.

Kneading takes f-o-r-e-v-e-r, fyi.  I worked at a bakery, and I think I took the bread mixers for granted, because, seriously, I thought my arms would give out before I got a, "silky, elastic texture".

Once I had them all ball-rolled and plopped into the pie pan, I was still pretty terrified that they wouldn't rise (and after all that, I wasn't taking any chances), so I boiled some water in the electric teapot, poured it into a coffee mug and set it on top of the Trusty Crousty (which I turned on low, the top gets real hot) with a chopstick inside it.  Then I put the DeeDees right next to it and draped a towel over the whole set up.

They rose FAST.

Let me just reiterate -- F-A-S-T.

I thought to myself, "I will go to DreamMart and get some things for dinner."  DreamMart is only two and a half blocks away, nothing could happen.

Is it ironic that I over-proofed them?

[caption id="attachment_310" align="alignleft" width="225" caption="As you can see, I did at least TRY to eat them.."][/caption]

I have trouble figuring out what irony is.

Regardless, in the end, they went the way of the first batch of dough.  Sadly.  But, to the DeeDees credit, they did taste good.  They were just too weird and dry.  They were the best right out of the oven.  After that... you know, kinda downhill.

They looked cute.

I will try again, bread is something I can fiddle with over a long period of time, I think, and so I probably will.  It's interesting and tad bit finicky, which seems like fun.

There are my DeeDees.

The main problem with bread recipes over the internet, though, is that no one -- lie detector says: maybe 3 people -- bake bread the old fashioned way anymore.  Everybody uses their bread machines.  Which is all well and good, until you move to Korea and all the bread machines are in KOREAN.

Then you're stuck the Trusty Crousty, but no Beard on Bread or whatever in sight.

I guess converting from machine to oven isn't too difficult, though, and I will be trying it.

For tonight, however, I am making fresh applesauce.  And I wanted to make sweet and sour chicken, but was completely floored by the fact that DreamMart doesn't seem to carry vinegar.  It's bizarre.  I have seen vinegar.  I have seen vinegar everywhere.  And all I need is white vinegar.

Come to think of it, though, I don't know that I've ever seen plain, white vinegar.  Which.. I mean, really?  No white vinegar?  Really?  How hard could it possibly be?  They eat squid, that's hard. That make kimchi, constantly, all the time and that's no easy trick.  And they.. you know.. read the space age scrawl that is the Korean language.

They make all their medications in-country!

You'd expect a little white vinegar, now, wouldn't you?

So, now we are having stir-fry.  Neither as good nor as fun as sweet and sour chicken, but I am at a vinegar loss.  I thought about possibly using lemon juice, but, after my DeeDee failure, I need something to turn out properly, so I'm sticking to what I know.

Maybe next time.

Also, Thanksgiving is out.  But we will have pie.  So, I'll let you know how that goes.

- catie

Catie: Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread!

[caption id="attachment_277" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Don't look too closely -- it's so blurry!"][/caption]

Natalie, don't look.  The following pictures are going to be very blurry.  I AM SO ASHAMED.

The pumpkin bread turned out surprisingly delicious.  As you may notice, it didn't fluff up very much -- or.. even at all.  Which is due to several factors.  In hindsight, I knew it would be dense, so I don't know why I didn't fill the pans up more.  Neurological disconnect, I suppose.  But it tastes really good.  It just doesn't look as cute in it's little cardboard pans as it probably would have if it had risen properly in the oven.

I made a couple of changes.  We haven't been able to get any whole wheat flour yet (though we may have found some very light whole wheat flour -- I can't remember how dark it's supposed to be...), but I did find some, "buckwheat powder" at Emart, which I naturally assumed was also known as "buckwheat flour".  So, I added about half buckwheat flour.  It also called for only white sugar and white sugar creeps me out a little, so I threw in about half brown sugar.  I'm sure both of these were contributing factors in keeping the bread at the bottom of the pan.

It definitely did taste pumpkiny, though more mildy pumpkiny, I think.  Which could have been because I didn't measure the spices, so maybe there weren't enough.

[caption id="attachment_278" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Little Japanese pans"][/caption]

A little less blurry and a better look at the little pan.  They worked really well, though I wasn't sure whether or not to grease them, so I did just a tiny bit to be on the safe side and it kind of bled through.  Maybe next time I won't, though I have a feeling some grease would bleed through anyway.

Overall, a success because it tasted delicious.

I have high hopes for my Thanksgiving menu as well:

Roast Chicken with stuffing

60 minute rolls

Mashed potatoes and gravy

Pumpkin pie

Green bean casserole

And possibly a wild rice sausage dressing and a cranberry sauce from dried cranberries. I have heard it can be done, it just doesn't taste as good.  But when you're overseas and it's hard to get your hands on things, it doesn't matter if everything tastes, "as good", just so long as it tastes similar enough.  I also might make a strawberry pie.  They're the only berries I can find - even frozen.  I'd like cherries, but alas.

Who knows how well this will work out.  We will see.

Also, our internet has been on the fritz for the past two days or so.  I meant to post this yesterday, but couldn't.  So, if you don't hear from us again for a while, that could be why.

However, we will still be available via Skype.

- catie

Catie: Japanese Sweet Pumpkin

[caption id="attachment_263" align="aligncenter" width="420" caption="My little "Japanese Sweet Pumpkin"."][/caption]

I got this little "pumpkin" at HomePlus about a week or two ago and have been waiting to get the right ingredients and tools to turn it into something.  Isn't it cute?

First, I thought maybe a pie, but Thanksgiving is coming up and it would ruin the fun (or the horror, depending on how the actual pie turns out........) to have a pie so close to the holiday.  So, I'm going to try Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread instead.  I thought about muffins, but, since no one bakes here, all baking pans run in the range of $8.00-$10.00 and, at Lotte, they have baking pans made of paper that are made in Japan (they're real cute, I'll post pictures once it's baked).  So, I opted for some Japanese paper loaf pans and we'll see how that goes.

[caption id="attachment_261" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Seeds, strings and slime."][/caption]

 I may try my hand at roasting seeds, but first we'll see how the loaf goes.  The inside color of the squash is lovely, very butternut squash-esque.

I used the How to Roast a Pumpkin in 10 Steps tutorial over at Elana's Pantry to bake it and now I have a bowl full of lovely squash waiting to be properly mashed.

[caption id="attachment_266" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Squash mash."][/caption]

I only had the one, small pie pan, so I had to bake each half seperately, but it worked out well.  The first half's skin got a little mushy, so I was able to let it sit and cool until the second half got done and they both scraped out easily.  I've never tasted raw pumpkin straight out of the.. you know, pumpkin, so I don't know if it tastes similar or not, but it tastes like squash.  So, I figure it'll be similar.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Also on the list to bake: Mrs. Reagan's Persimmon Pudding

Persimmons are all over the place here and they're so pretty, orange and red.  I've been wondering for a while what people do with them.  I know they eat them raw, but I remember trying one once when I used to work at a small, produce market and the texture's pretty weird.  You're supposed to wait until they're super ripe to eat them, so they get slimy and pulpy.  I don't remember how they taste though.

They could be really gross, but I want to try it since they're everywhere and all the ajummas (middle-aged-old ladies) swear they're really good for you.

Let you know how it goes.

- catie

Catie: What we're eating.

The Trusty Crousty

While we may be alternately poor and only somewhat poor, we've been eating really well.

So far, within our repertoire, we have the following:

Spaghetti
Chili with biscuits
Vegetable Beef Soup
Pork Stir-fry
Sloppy Joes (of questionable merit)
Fried chicken with mashed potatoes and cream gravy (very unhealthy, but I needed cream gravy...)
Chicken pesto with fresh vegetables
Oven fries (Which go with everything)

And we eat a lot of grilled cheese sandwiches, sometimes with ham or an egg.  Also, some "Eggs in a Basket", the toast with an egg fried in a hole cut in it's center, more gruesomely known as "Birdie in a Basket" by Ben, a name that freaks me out. I prefer to think of my eggs as... you know, NOT unborn chickens.

I think one of our best accomplishments thus far, however, is the baked chicken with pasta we made the other night.

I thawed two chicken breasts by heating water in our electric kettle and pouring it over them (still no microwave).
Then I rubbed them with a little olive oil and a mixture of oregano, rosemary and basil, and laid them in the weird, sort of roasting pan that came with The Trusty Crousty.  I cut a red pepper into strips, and laid them on top and around the chicken and drizzled a bit olive oil over the whole thing.  It baked at 350 F (about 175 C) for... 45 minutes or so. 

While it was baking, I poured maybe a cup and a half of Prego (Costco) into a skillet and started it simmering, then chopped:

six cherry tomatoes in quarters
two garlic cloves really finely (no garlic press)
one quarter onion (small, diced)

and threw all that into the prego to simmer.

In a second skillet, I fried two slices of bacon, really crisply, chopped them up and threw them into the sauce as well.

At HomePlus, we got some multi-colored Fusilli (spiral shaped pasta, "The name comes from fusile, archaic/dialect form of fucile, meaning rifle. As the inside barrel of a gun is "rifled" using a similar screw-shaped device" -- Wiki) and I boiled some of that.

We poured the souped up Prego over the Fusilli and put the chicken and roasted red peppers on top.  Ben made some delicious garlic bread, too.  It was quite a success and, what with our current glut of chicken breasts, we may be making something similar later on this week. We got some Tortelloni (Legend has it when gods walked the earth, an innkeeper was so enchanted with the beauty of Venus, he modeled the little Tortellini after her navel! The nickname for this pasta in Bologna is "sacred navels"!  "Tortelloni" is a larger version of Tortellini.) at Costco and I want to make something delicious with it.

Italian food is ALL the rage here, which is kind of nice, because we have an idea of what to do with the ingredients and what goes with what.

Us, all bundled up to go outside!

What I want to do is come up with things we've been able to cook in Korea, and sooking/baking substitutions that work and put all the recipes where other foreigners can access them.  There are not a lot of places to find recipes that Westerners can cook here.  And not a lot of places to tell you where to find ingredients.

But I want to do a lot of things.... psh.

Anyhow, that's what's been on our plates.  I often find myself feeling like I have nothing to post a lot of the time, but, I think since it's been FREEZING cold the past few days, and I've been doing more baking and cooking, I should be able to post about that.  We've also had a little more money and have been able to do some shopping for fun ingredients.  So, I'll try to remember to post my cooking/baking misadventures.

There's a picture of us -- today, in fact -- all bundled up to walk Ben to school.  It's chilly, but it makes it feel like the holidays are here!

- catie

[caption id="attachment_227" align="alignleft" width="420" caption="One of many mandarin men, lining the streets of Korea"][/caption]

Good morning!

Or.. afternoon.  As the case may be.  It is 2:00pm here, I guess.

We both have our excuses for not posting in the past, you know, forever.  Mine is also Fringe, in part.  I do like it a lot (though it is SCARY -- a lot of people explode!).   But... mostly, I'm just not as enthralled with Korea anymore.  I still like it here (how many times have I said that?  brainwash myself much..?), but it's not as new and novel.

Also, we are alternately very poor and somewhat poor, so we don't always have a whole lot to talk about.

We took some fall-ish pictures last Saturday, though.  It's been a beautiful fall here.  There are a lot of bright red Japanese Maples and yellow Ginkgos along the sidewalks.

And also mandarin orange, persimmon, and nut vendors.  We're not sure what there is to do with persimmons.  I used to work at a tiny produce market and we'd get them in every winter and put them in a slightly refrigerated case, where they would turn from orange to red and then get slimy.  Really, really slimy.  The mandarin oranges are amazing some of the time and bland the rest - it's really hit or miss.  We get them a lot.  And we haven't tried the nut vendors yet.  They always smell delicious when we walk by though.

[caption id="attachment_229" align="alignleft" width="420" caption="The road that goes by HomePlus."][/caption]

This is the road that goes past our HomePlus store downtown.  It's a good example of what most roads look like in Daejeon, though.  The sidewalks are cobbled and there is usually a running/walking/biking path of red astroturf along side it.  It will be really nice once we get bikes.  We're continually surprised by how many bikers we see about.

Daejeon has even created a bike sharing program with these really cute, green cruisers.  They have rows of them all over town, with little computer/monitor things next to them and you give them your alien registration number and cellphone number (when we get a cellphone we'll be able to use them) and.. I think the first two hours are 1,000W and after that it's 500W/half hour.  I can't remember, but it's not that expensive.  Plus, the bikes are cute.  And there are so many pick up/return points all over the city that you'd only have to ride one way and then you can lock them back up and go about your business.

We've been having a lot of fun the past week or so.  Since we got paid, we've been able to organize our house a bit better and get some more to cook with.  We got a couple big skillets that, instead of being coated with chippy, flaky teflon, have been coated with some sort of "diamond ceramic".  It's amazing.  Nothing sticks to it.  This backfires sometimes when, say, I am trying to flip an over easy egg the stupid thing just slips all over the pan instead of sliding onto my spatula.  But, overall, they're amazing.

We were also able to go into town yesterday and have some fun.  We stopped at one of our favorite destinations, TimeWorld Galleria, this G-I-A-N-T mall creation that houses.. well, we still haven't gotten a good glimpse.  Last night, we checked out the gourmet grocery store in the 2nd basement, complete with a Burger King (you don't get much more gourmet than BK!), and a simply scrumptious gelato place.  They had flavors like cream cheese, green tea, latte, dark chocolate (barely even sweet, just soo chocolatey and sooo good), tiramisu, banana, caramel, milk (isn't that a given?), menthe, withe chocolate (and no, that's not a typo, it was withe) and tons more we can't remember.  We got the tiny size, and thus, three flavor choices: dark chocolate, tiramisu and I wanted caramel, but we got banana - some things just get lost in translation.  We ended up sharing it because there was also confusion as to how many cups we wanted.  It was really good, though there was some argument over who had to eat the banana.  Poor, neglected flavor.

Catie: All the pepoples of Korea love their maple food.

[caption id="attachment_202" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="all the pepoples!"]                                                                                                                 [/caption]

We had a pretty good weekend.  We'd meant to go hiking on Saturday up at -- i think this is how it's spelled -- Gyeryongsan National Park.  Which, apparently, is huge and awesome.

Unfortunately, we are not awesome.  And we are lazy on the weekends.

So, instead, we hopped a bus into the big city.  First, we went to HomePlus, which is another huge department store.  There are so many here and they're pretty great because we can find stuff in them to cook at home.  So far, we've been to LotteMart (too expensive), E-Mart (okay prices), Costco (expensive, but they have stuff you can't find anywhere - i.e. cheese, lunchmeat...) and now HomePlus.

They're all basically the same as far as looks and size.  Three giant floors, each devoted to something different, and each of them has some foreign food we want.

HomePlus, though, might be our favorite so far.  We found tons of stuff there.  It was kind of funny.  They have about six or seven different types of spaghetti sauce, Hershey's Special Dark chocolate chips, frozen tortillas, tatertots, canned diced tomatoes (an anomaly, it feels like), Hunt's tomato paste and tomato sauce, canned pinto beans, kidney beans, black beans and -- the holy grail -- GREEN BEANS.  They're all french cut, but they have them!  I was amazed.  I thought I wouldn't see another green bean for a year.

We didn't get to go shopping this time, though we did buy green beans, canned corn (they're so obsessed with corn here that their canned corn isn't too awful and the frozen stuff is incredibly expensive) and a can of tomato sauce to make vegetable beef soup.  It ended up tasting great and just like home.

I think people who live in Seoul, or in Daejeon proper probably think we're nuts for being so excited, but we don't find those sorts of things out here in boonies.  We can find some stuff (Lotte actually has alfredo sauce) and we do have tomato paste here, but for one, like, 12 oz. can its almost $4.00, at HomePlus it was $2.00.  So, if we lived somewhere bigger or more heavily populated with foreigners, it would be easier to find stuff like that, but it makes the finding even more exciting.  And it forces us to think more about what we want to make at home, what's affordable, and when we'd rather eat out.

So, HomePlus was a success!  And, even though we didn't go hiking, we did do quite a bit of walking to get there.

Also, we got the picture above from what seemed to be a small impulse fixture of shoes and purses (yes, impulse shoes for... thirty dollars). It's hard to read, so here's a close-up:

[caption id="attachment_207" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="all the pepoples!"][/caption]

Here is what it says in full: "Make up your skin!all the pepople Love your color.Bloom Boom Boom!"

While I do like the pepoples, I really like the Bloom Boom Boom.  It sounds like someone's getting shot or it's a really loud concert.  I don't know, but it's pretty funny.

Also, we say this all the time, but:  Though we do cook a lot of American food, we eat out a lot, too.  It's just that when we're less financially stable (right now), it makes a lot more sense to make a big pot of soup and eat it for dinner twice than to spend that ten dollars to eat once.  A lot of Americans coming to Korea are accused of either hating Korean food or refusing to try it, and we've done neither.  We like it and we like to eat it.  In fact, we'd probably eat a lot more of it if we had the resources.  However, moving forward.

After HomePlus, we went back to the Starbucks right next to our bus stop.  It's at this HUGE mall called The Galleria Time World (kind of an awesome name) that is full of (as far as we can tell, though we haven't explored very far) brand name Designers: Chanel, Gucci, Dior, etc...  I don't know how people afford that stuff, but it's always packed to the gills.

And across the street from The Galleria Tim World is another Starbucks!  So, we get to choose every time we go into town.  But the second one is newer and has phased it's soft chairs out, so we never pick it.  Always the one in Galleria Time World.  Also, the latte we always share, is maybe the best Starbucks latte I have ever had.  Including back at home.  The only thing we can think of is that they have the old, old machines.  The ones before the last old ones that they have in America.  Whatever it is, their lattes are killer.

That was Saturday, totally boring but good.

Sunday was.. weird.  And awkward.

We'd seen somewhere that an Irish movie was playing at The International Center in Daejeon.  And it was free.  And in a part of town we'd never been to.  And we got Colin Farrell and Colin Firth confused, so we thought we might actually like the movie.  Unfortunately, we don't like Colin Farrell at all.. and we love Colin Firth, so the confusion was of a particularly bad sort.

But The Int'l Center does have a very small lending library of English books.  Basically, when you're done living here or done with the books you brought, you can give them to the lending library and then other foreigners can get a membership and check those books out.  There is one shelf of DVDs too, though.. we can download anything we want in minutes, so that's what we usually do.  Ben was very excited about the English books.

The movie was..  well, it was called Intermission, and it was... sort of like a cross between Crash and, I don't know, maybe Love, Actually and then comedy thrown in between violence.  But with a lot less Love, Actually.  It was a real weird mixture.  I was never sure whether I should be horrified or laughing.  In all, we decided to make an effort in future never to confuse The Colins again.  It does not turn out well when we do.  Everyone in the movie dies, and then it's like you're supposed to laugh or something.

I knit a good piece of sock during the crazy though.  And we got to try this Korean Cola (can't remember the name) that was like coke and coffee with the caffeine of a red bull.  It was scary stuff.  If someone ever offers you a drink saying, "You should like to try this, this.. cola.  It is like a Korean kind of Coca Cola."  If anyone ever says that to you, do not do it.  You may not quiver at the mention of the stuff, but you will afterwards when you are suffering caffeine tremors.

The movie was weird, definitely, and very awkward when, once the movie was over and they had us trapped, they tried to commission everyone to commit to some program involving the Korean school system.  All I know is that the paragraph on the flyer they handed out went like this,

"We have performed the multi-cultural educations with many foreign friends to Korean school students for years.  According to that fact, we are currently looking for many friends who were not born in Korea and be glad to share their culture with Korean school students.  We would like you to consider doing it with our teams.  Plus, we'll provide small bonus for your favor."

All very awkward, yes, so.. we sort of just walked out and left without saying goodbye.........

The Int'l Center was on a really cool side of town, though.  To get from the side of the street our bus dropped us at to the side with the center, we had to go through an underground crosswalk.  Which went straight past a mall.  This big hallway underground, with all kinds of people shopping.  It was crazy.  We should have gotten pictures.

And, after the movie, we stopped and got what we thought were steamed buns (I don't think Korea makes them, but they're the best part of China -- like a chewy roll with barbecue pulled pork inside), but ended up being more of a giant mandu (dumpling).  Not the most awesome, but fun to try anyway.  Inside they had ground pork and green onion and maybe some scrambled egg.  They're pretty big, maybe the size of a large mandarin orange, and super oniony, but they were good.

Everything here, really, is either super oniony or super garlicy.  We notice the garlic the most when we go to the grocery store in search of garlic cloves by the milligram and can only find either a giant sack unhusked or a styromfoam platter of maybe 20-30 peeled cloves, shrink wrapped in plastic.  They eat a lot of raw garlic here.  And raw, marinated onions, too.

The mandu place was cute.  It was very tiny, probably ten feet by... 15 feet?  It had two doors, one on either side, and two tables right between the two doors.  It was so tiny that their kitchen was also the dining area with no barrier between the two, so we got to watch them make our mandu while we waited.  Again, we should have taken pictures, but that was a situation where we sure they liked us and didn't want them to be offended, so.. it was better not to take pictures.

On the way back to our bus stop, we came across this poster all about delicious Autumn food at a sort of Starbucks-esque, gourmet little Korean cafe:

[caption id="attachment_205" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="what a colorful autumn table..."][/caption]

Wow, such a colorful autumn table.  There's red food, yellow food.... maple food?

[caption id="attachment_206" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="red food, yellow food.... maple food."][/caption]

Maple food.  My favorite.

They must have thought, "maple" was synonymous with "brown"...?  Which could normally be true.  Except when you're talking about food...

That was our weekend.  Not incredibly exciting unless it's been a month since you last saw green beans!  But it was fun and we got to take the subway once, too.  Always a fun time.

Catie: Delicious food

Sorry we've not been keeping up with the blog.  I think we've settled in a bit and everything's kind of lost it's shimmer.  Not that we don't like it, we still do.  Everything's just not as shiny, new and exciting.  It's been hard thinking of things to write about.

We've started cooking -- a little.  We've now made spaghetti (eh..), stir-fry twice, and pesto with chicken and vegetables.  Also, pancakes (Bisquick from Costco!), french toast (all the bread here is Texas toast-esque, very thick, perfect for french toast) and we had to make the syrup ourselves with the mapleine we brought.  I would recommend that to travelers.  There is real, live maple syrup here, but, like back home, it's usually real expensive.  And, what at home would cost maybe $8.00, costs $13.00 here.  So, we're very happy with our -- what? maybe $3.00 -- mapleine purchase  that will probably last us until we leave.  Unless we eat a lot of pancakes....  a distinct possibility.

It's been fun figuring out what we can cook here, but it's also been pretty hindered.  In our kitchen, we have one giant wok-like skillet, coated in peeling teflon.  That was left behind by the previous teachers and we plan to replace it in November.  We have one, very tiny aluminum saucepan and one very tiny little aluminum pot.  We have three ladles, one flimsy pancake turner, a whisk, and a wooden spatula.  We have two cutting boards, two forks, and four spoons, plus one pair of wooden bamboo chopsticks and about five pairs of the Korean metal chopsticks.  Then we have our rice cooker (it's awesome -- good rice in a matter of 15 minutes), our gas range top thing, and our lazy toaster oven that barely wants to work at all.  And I mean it only has one job -- heat up to cook things.  Can that really be so hard?

Apparently so since it would rather function as a dehydrator, drying all our food to crunchy ghosts of their former  selves.

We will also be replacing the toaster oven come November as well as purchasing a microwave.  I have very high hopes for our Thanksgiving.

In other news, we are going to the National park to hike on Saturday, so we should have something to say for a change.

- catie

P.S. I have typed most of this post using my left hand and the tip of my ice cream cone with my right hand (what? i have to EAT it... and I have to type -- simple solution!)... so, if there are gross misspellings, know that it is not my lack of intellect (not that inability to spell implies lack of intellect), but rather my phenomenal ability to make do with what is available to me.

Catie: Korean Barbecue - picture LADEN.

These are the pictures from our trip Friday night to the barbecue place across the street.

Because we were so poor for two weeks, we had almost zero red meat and the first thing I wanted to do when we got paid was have barbecue, because all it is is slabs of uncooked pork, chopped and laid out on a grill in the middle of your table.

[caption id="attachment_157" align="alignleft" width="225" caption="a version of the korean barbecue table"][/caption]

This is a version -- a pretty cool one, actually -- of a barbecue table.  In this one, it's a metal table top placed on top of, like, a burn barrel/oil drum?  Sorry the picture is so dark, it makes it hard to tell what's going on.  You can see the hole in the middle of the table with the grill on either side because this one's grill is in pieces, which is also cool.  It's in four pieces of cast iron (something you never find here in cookware), but only the middle two are over the fire underneath, the outside two are over metal underneath and used only to keep things warm.

The box on the table is the sort of box you find at every single restaurant, no matter what kind.  It has these long, metal -- almost sundae -- spoons and flat, metal chopsticks which are quite a trick to get used to.  I'm still dropping mine all the time because they're flat and slippery, though my hands have gotten a lot stronger again.

[caption id="attachment_158" align="alignleft" width="225" caption="our table"][/caption]

This is our table, complete with all food and appetizers.  Here you can also see the copper fan that pulls down from the ceiling to suck the hot air up.

The cool thing about BBQ is that all you have to do is go in and know how to say what kind of meat you want.  So, we went in and said, "dwegee", which is, "pork", and then look all that food.  That's what we ended up with because they just bring you everything.  You automatically get, probably, five to seven side dishes/appetizers.

And they just keep coming.  Every time you think you're done and your table can't even fit anymore, they'll bring out something else and make it fit.

And we took pictures of all those things!  So, lucky you.  Haha.

[caption id="attachment_160" align="alignright" width="300" caption="lettuce leaves for making tiny wraps"][/caption]

You will notice, in some cases, there is not a lot of food left.  That is because we were starving and forgot to take the pictures until it was mostly gone.  Sorry!  Don't think the Koreans are skimpy with food, we're just gluttonous!

You don't have plates or any dishware to yourself at a barbecue restaurant, you just eat straight off the grill with your chopsticks and you're supposed to put the pork into the lettuce leaf like a wrap and eat it.  You can add any of the sides to it, too (we don't know if that's kosher, but it's fun!), so it's like a game of combining and tasting.  It is soooo good.

[caption id="attachment_161" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="red kimchi"][/caption]

Here you have the red kimchi.

Sour, incredibly spicy, tastes almost identical to sauerkraut, but a ton spicier.  I try to take a bite or two every time we go out (you get it as a free appetizer at almost every single restaurant), just because I want to get used to it.  But, so far, it's not my super favorite.  It's an acquired taste.

The guys from Ben's work, Bryan and Aaron, like to grill it and eat it in their lettuce wraps.

Sorry some of the pictures are blurry!  We are not generally amazing photographers.

[caption id="attachment_162" align="alignright" width="300" caption="white kimchi"][/caption]

This is white kimchi.

Again, just like sauerkraut, but waaay less spicy.  If you get up close you can see a little red pepper, but I think maybe they use white pepper too?  Hard to say.

It's not bad.  I like sauerkraut on things, I think I'll just need to adjust to eating it plain.

I do like the white kimchi a little better because it's not so spicy.

[caption id="attachment_164" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="red bean paste sauce -- YUM."][/caption]

This is our FAVORITE.

We think, from talking to Bryan, that it's a sauce made from fermented red beans.  It tastes like that is probably true.

Whatever though, it is AWESOME.  So, so good.

As you may notice... it is all gone.

Now you know why.

[caption id="attachment_165" align="alignright" width="300" caption="onion green salad"][/caption]

Ben's not so keen on this salad (it's pretty durn spicy), but I like it pretty well.

All it is..  is onion greens.  For a while, I thought it was just green onions, but I'm sure now that it's just the greens from fully developed onions.  It tastes a little milder than green onions.

There's a sort of sweet and sour -- again, incredibly spicy -- sauce over the top.  It tastes sort of like... maybe Catalina dressing?  Only spicy and a little more sour.

It's good if you like onions.  It's the only real oniony thing I'll a significant amount of.

[caption id="attachment_166" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="more onions!"][/caption]

This is a pretty common way to see onions done -- around our dong (neighborhood) at least.  I have to confess I didn't try them, not being a super huge fan of raw, marinated onions.  But I think they're just marinated in some sort of garlic?  Maybe some oil?  Ben said they were good, just very strong.

[caption id="attachment_167" align="alignright" width="300" caption="green... flat things?"][/caption]

This, we did not try.

No, we are probably not adventurous enough.

But, keep in mind, that whatever this is -- I'm pretty convinced it's these weird, long, turnip things we see at the market -- it comes in many colors and we are done trying it.

It came green this time.  We hadn't seen green before.  So, it was probably vinegary?  Most things are.  But we're not sure.

It was a very lovely shade of green, however.

[caption id="attachment_168" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="perhaps some seaweed"][/caption]

Again, we did not try it (we sound like truly bad travelers!), it's just... that once you try barbecue side dishes once, you come to realize that they'll probably all be heavily salted, and either very vinegary, or very spicy, or both.

So, you get a little done, and a little more choosy.

This is probably seaweed.  Which doesn't taste bad, I'm sure.  We were just hungry, focused on pork, and weren't feeling as adventurous.

[caption id="attachment_169" align="alignright" width="300" caption="garlic sesame oil"][/caption]

Another dipping sauce.

This is probably sesame oil, infused with garlic.

It is incredibly delicious.  You can dip your meat in here (or the red bean -- or both) before wrapping it in lettuce.  It's seriously awesome.

[caption id="attachment_170" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="jalapenos?"][/caption]

This super cute little dish used to have garlic in it along side these green peppers, but one of the most delicious-est things to do with your barbecue, is grill the garlic and put it in with your pork as a wrap.  Some sesame oil, some red bean.  It's good.

So, it's just the green peppers, which looked like spicy, green peppers.  And after all the other spice, these were another that we didn't try.

[caption id="attachment_171" align="alignright" width="300" caption="sort of a meso soup"][/caption]

This soup reminded us both of meso.

Those chunks are tofu and the broth tastes a lot like the meso soup you'd get with sushi or something.  Salty, not quite as fermented-ish, but good.

Ben loved it.  And it was good, not my super favorite, but he ate a bunch of it.

[caption id="attachment_172" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="custard"][/caption]

This was a very bland, unsalted, un-anything-ed custard.

It was also pretty watery.

But it seemed like the lady brought it out for us especially (probably not, it's just hard to tell), so we tried to make a point of trying it.  Definitely not bad at all, just boring.

Our dong is really tiny and we are two of four foreigners living in it (the other two being Bryan and Aaron -- neither of whom really ever go out).  We may be the only four caucasian people living on this side of town, period.  It's a little hard to tell.  But people are usually either really nice or really not nice, right off the bat.  And part of being really nice can sometimes mean bringing you special food.  Which is often scary.  But you eat it anyway.  Because at least someone is being nice.

And that is the Korean Barbecue experience.

Sorry it was so long!  I don't like long posts, I know they can get boring.  But there are just so many THINGS.

You should all come visit us and we'll take you for barbecue!  It's our favorite.

- catie

Catie: VIDEO!! of Costco

Okay, so we JUST got back from Costco and we are too tired for a real Costco post, so we give you:

The videos of our Costco purchases!

There were many more things we saw there that we could not purchase, but these were the essentials.

The video is in two parts because it's taken with my tiny camera and it only takes, like, one minute videos.

Catie: Chuseok!

[caption id="attachment_84" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="our chuseok gift"][/caption]

This was our Chuseok (Chew-sock) gift.  Two shampoos, two conditioners, one body wash, two bars of soap and six -- yes, count them, six -- tubes of toothpaste.

I'd heard the Korean's were big on dental health (Korean Toothbrushing, from eatyourkimchi.com), but seriously.  Six tubes of toothpaste?  I don't even know if we can brush our teeth enough to use up that much toothpaste in a year.

The set is pretty awesome though.  My favorite is the bottle that doesn't say anything but DAMAGE.  Our best guess is either that it's a bottle of certain demise, or a bottle of intense conditioner for very damaged hair.  Most likely the latter, though we do enjoy hypothesizing what sorts of damage such a small bottle could do...

[caption id="attachment_89" align="alignright" width="145" caption="DAMAGE!! -- not so reassuring..."][/caption]

So, around Chuseok time, all the stores sell these sets.  There are ones like this, with beauty products, some with tea and little tea pots, coffee and cups,  and then there are the scary ones with hard alcohol, like jack daniels and scotch, and there are SPAM Chuseok sets.  With up to 6 cans of different types of SPAM (they like to mix meats -- more on that later).  Apparently, though, SPAM sets are considered a little low brow.  I just think it's hysterical that they sell a set of spam at all.

Did we ever explain Chuseok?  I can't remember.  It's a harvest festival that's considered, "The Korean Thanksgiving", by foreigners and it is bo-ring.

Not to Koreans, obviously.  They get presents, they get traditional Korean food, they get to clean the graves of their ancestors.  All very enviable things.  And we got a present.  We got the shampoo.  Thankfully, without having to clean any graves.

It's just boring because.. you know how in America, if you find out that someone doesn't have a place to go on a major holiday like Thanksgiving or Christmas, you ask them to come to your house?  You know?  Even if you don't like them very well, because otherwise you'll be afraid that someday when you're alone on a major holiday, no one will invite you over (maybe that's just me..).  Well, in Korea, most people aren't too big on including foreigners in holidays or traditions.  You get included if you're married in and.. that's about it.

So, on Chuseok, most foreigners are sunk.  This year, it was on Saturday, so naturally, everything was closed from Thursday until Monday.  That makes sense.  Sure.

No, it does not.

It's probably because we're from a capitalist society that I'm so outraged, and that makes me feel bad.  Because, capitalism.. seems gluttonous and everything.  But I still like places to be open!  Even on Christmas Eve!  And, therefore, even on Chuseok Eve, and especially on the two days following Chuseok!!

But, whatev.  It's over.  And we're not genuinely upset.  We're still totally in the Korea honeymoon phase, loving it here, even when nothing's open and we're hungry.  Because the Family Mart (convenience store) was open, so we got some bowl noodles and gim-bap (more of a kim-bob sort of pronunciation.. or a cross between the two.. hard to describe.), which is a lot like sushi in that it's white rice wrapped in seaweed, but in the middle they put cooked meats.  Like ham and tuna and crab.  Like I said, they like to mix meats a lot here.  It doesn't seem like we do a lot of that in the US.  But they're all bold and nonchalant about it, selling weird sandwiches called, "Ham Tuna Potato sandwich" and "Pork Crab Meat Sandwich".

It was a good Chuseok.

Check out AsktheExpat's blog:  Chuseok Gifts and the Foreigner Experience.  He's one of my favorite blogs since getting here and he has way better (and probably more upbeat) information on Chuseok.  It's interesting.

His blog and eatyourkimchi are my most favorites.  They're probably not as awesome unless you actually need the information in order to be able to wash your clothes, turn on your stove, figure out what that weird thing is a convenience store, etc.. but we like 'em.

More later, for now.. I need to go find more food.  The constant journey.

- catie

Catie: HappinessChurch

[caption id="attachment_77" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="we are here. in daejeon, which was formerly spelled, T-A-E-J-E-O-N. but now it's not. okay."][/caption]

When Ben was looking for jobs in Korea, we were thinking a lot about where we wanted to live: big city or small city?  And what sorts of resources and transportation we would have access to.  We were also -- sort of -- thinking about whether or not there would be familiar food available, because so many people in the onlines told us there would be absolutely none.

And let me just give a quick disclaimer:  We have been eating Korean food!  We are just super poor (and have been pretty much since we arrived) until tomorrow.  Which makes things difficult.  When you have a certain amount of money allotted for each meal, with no groceries at home to cook, and you are in a foreign country, knowing nothing of what tastes good and what is mostly squid tentacles and onion greens with fire-hot red pepper sauce.. you have to be careful.  One wrong move and you've got scary food in front of you with no backup plan.  You just have to skip that meal.  So, we haven't been eating familiar foods because we are afraid of Korean food -- what we've tried so far has been real good -- we're just afraid of running out of money at the moment.  We will be posting many delicious Korean food excerpts once we get paid.  Rest assured.

Now, moving forward.  We moved to Daejeon (the fifth largest city in Korea), knowing the

[caption id="attachment_78" align="alignright" width="300" caption="delicious spaghetti -- yum!"][/caption]

transportation was good, that the cost of living was significantly lower than that of Seoul (the only reason we aren't living in Seoul), and thinking it would very likely be impossible to find familiar food outside of Costco.

Well, as stated earlier, everyone on the internet lies.

And this is our proof!

Look at that delicious food (assuming the red, wormy stuff is ground beef -- the jury's out on that until we taste it)!  And we bought it all at the Dream Mart, which is.. maybe three blocks from our apartment?

They sell everything important.  Peanut butter, jelly, bread (only white though - eh.), everything for spaghetti, and.. we just found grated mozzarella the other day!  Real cheese.  Not the, "processed cheese food product" american cheese, or whatever it's called -- which is mostly all they have here.

So, tonight, we get to have delicious spaghetti.

[caption id="attachment_79" align="alignright" width="300" caption="happinesschurch!"][/caption]

In closing, I give you.. happinesschurch.

I don't know if you can read it.

But it says, "HappinessChurch". What kind of a church is HappinessChurch?  I do not know, but it sounds pretty sweet to me.


It was left in our apartment by the previous couple who taught at Ben's school and we think it warrants a little blog recognition.  It's over our bedroom door.


Who knows where it came from.  but it's shiny, gold and it makes me laugh.

- catie

Ben: Skippy!

I have no idea how much peanut butter I ate while I was in China, but I do know the amount was somewhere around very very very very very much peanut butter (as most of my students would say). Anyways, Catie and I were very excited to find exotic Skippy Extra Crunch Peanut butter at the local Dream Mart grocery store. Since this product had clearly travel far from the decadent West where it was created, we were going to wait until pay day to indulge ourselves. However, on reconsideration we decided that PB and J sammies sounded delicious. For the reasonable price of 6500 won we purchased our peanut butter, and adding some bread and jam we headed home. The bread was a bit dry, but the peanut butter and jam were amazing, and we even had potato chips to go along with the sammies.*

*Official Disclaimer: While our last two posts have involved western foods, we have been eating plenty of Korean foods too (gotta love the ramyun [Korean for, "ramen"] cup noodles) which I'm sure we'll post on soon.

Catie: The things we've learned.

When you are poor, do not know the national language of the country you are occupying, and are stuck in your apartment, it is best to knit socks.

(They're done!  See?  I'm so happy with them, they fit better than the other pair I knit for myself and they're super warm, not so long that they bunch up.. I think I'll be making more like these.)

Also a good skill to acquire once the nights get really cold.  And they have.

Someone told us today that Korean winters are very dry (it's been very dry the past four or five days) and pretty temperate.

Which is not what we read on the internet...

Although, so far, we've found that it's inadvisable to listen to internet advice regarding Korea.  At all.  (Probably a useful life lesson overall)

Upon moving here, we have found the following:

- You can purchase almost anything in Korea -- including most food items.  The only exception being deodorant, which is not impossible to find, but is difficult to find and $20.00/stick once you do find it.

- Most people who will take the time to spend hours online making lists of what you should and should not bring to Korea are the sort of people who would rather spend hours online complaining than go taste the awesome local food (not counting Lotteria), get to know the local grocery store (there's a pretty funny Western section), or make friends.

- Dave's ESL Cafe.. not the best introduction to Korea if you're coming here with a level head, expecting the unexpected and planning to go with the flow and enjoy yourself.  It is the best, however, if you want to complain, gripe, and wallow over Reese's peanut butter cups.

Really, we've found out quite a few things.  But those have bowled us over the most.  We could have packed more clothes!

Other foreigners coming to Korea:  Please do not go to Dave's ESL Cafe.  They will have you pack a down comforter and lug a ton of oatmeal.

Not nice.

We didn't pack a down comforter.  But it was highly suggested.

Anyway, other things we've come to find:

- Not all bowl noodles are delicious. So, pick your favorites.

- Is it calamari if the suction cups are still attached?  Oh, well, it's still delicious.

- Chicken (takkogi) on a stick -- amazing.

- Corn Flight is not the same as Corn Flakes.

- That butter that won't melt no matter what you do is actually Korean Margarine.  Stay away from Korean Corn Margarine.  The butter is $4.00/cup but it's also worth it.  It will actually melt, a nice quality to find in butter.

- The local grocery store is cheaper than the convenience store (this is true in America too, so I don't know why we didn't realize it sooner..) and the local grocery store is also cheaper than the Lotte (Loht-tay) Mart, which is cool because of it's sparkly new things and it's three levels (they have these big conveyer belt ramps that your cart is magnetized to stick to and they take you to the second and third floors!), but not worth the price.  Although they do have bagels...

We've learned lots of other stuff, too, but the list would get too long and my bowl noodles are getting cold.  They're spicy beef flavored and they are awesome.  Look.

Catie: Who Sells the Cheesiest Cheeseburger?

Pictures, as promised.

This is a small portion of the open air market at the end of our block. On this side of the street, older women bring their vegetables to sell and spread them out in bowls and collanders on top of tarps and blankets and you can buy them (though only in large quantities, as I discovered) and on the other side of the street, there are two big, covered tunnels full of vendors selling raw meat, eggs, more vegetables, all kinds of things.

My favorite is the cooler full of skinny, plucked chickens!

It's really nice though and the produce is amazing. Before I knew it was buy-in-bulk only, we got The Best eggs and potatoes. Seriously, it was really good.

To the right is our stove, which I think is really cute (if inconveniently not located above an oven). And it's gas, which is awesome. It takes a little effort to light, but it's not hard. You just have to think differently here, since everything's not about convenience, it's more about function.

The stove was a wreck when we arrived, completely slathered in grease, which would have been okay. If this country sold anything close to a proper degreaser.

Oh, well, a lot of dishsoap later and most everything is clean.

[caption id="attachment_31" align="alignleft" width="239" caption="Yogurt? Cake?"][/caption]

And these little treasures are terrifying.

The drinks are about three inches tall and.. we aren't sure if they were made of rice or not. The little cake is undoubtedly made of rice. We got it on Wednesday, I think, so it may have been a mung bean cake for Cheusok, which was yesterday.

Cheusok is Korean Thanksgiving, a harvest celebration where everyone goes to their grandparents' house and eats traditional Korean food.

All that meant for us was that only the Lotteria was open for food.

The Lotteria is a block and a half from our house and, when we found it the other day, we were really excited because they have (what appear to be) cheeseburgers. And... I guess you couldn't say that they weren't cheeseburgers because weren't exactly not.. cheeseburgers.

Side note: When you've experienced asian culture for a period of time greater than a couple of weeks or so, you come to find that things, food especially, are not what they appear. So, it is best to alter your expectations accordingly.

We are poor right now, so we picked one of the cheaper things on the menu, what looked like a simple cheeseburger. It said, "cheeseburger", right next to it, leading us to believe....

This is what it was:

A hamburger bun with nacho cheese, a heavily salted, ground pork patty, a slice of american cheese, dark green pickles, lettuce and ketchup.

So, really... I mean, technically, it was a cheeseburger. After all, they went quite well out of their way to make it very.. cheesy... but I don't think I have to tell you that the combination of nacho cheese, ground pork and ketchup was not a good one.

Even still, we already knew going in that it would probably be a pretty hilarious experience. And it was. And now, when we want a cheeseburger, we will look for a McDonalds.

Though Lotteria did have good fries. And decent ketchup, not too sweet.

In parting, this is my newest project. A pair of Noro Stripey Socks:

That's just the beginning, I have the first sock done now and am almost done with the second. They've been fast and it's already starting to get cold at night, so I've been wearing my other pair of wool socks nonstop. It'll be nice to have a switch-out pair.