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: Ben's mitt/ens

[caption id="attachment_314" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="the mitt/ens"][/caption]

We don't have a car -- though we'd be too scared to drive it if we did (the bus we were in got side swiped by a tiny, red geo-metro-esque car yesterday, which apparently was no big deal since the driver of the geo-metro-esque got out of his car, laughing) -- so, we do a lot of walking.

To the bus stop.  To the store.  To Ewha.  To eat out.  Back home from the bus stop.

You get the idea.

And it's FREEZING outside.

While we did each pack a coat, a hat, gloves and a scarf, we picked mostly utilitarian ones.  Most of them are fine, but some of them are downright ugly (very warm, just very ugly).  The worst of which is probably both our pairs of gloves.  They just aren't cute.

And so, Ben got these.  I know they look sort of blue, but they're really a smokey gray, not very blue at all.  They're knit out of a 100% superwash wool called PRIME, made in Italy.  They won't be as super warm as his giant, black eyesores (they're not really that bad), but when we're just walking around town, we usually have our hands in our pockets anyway.  And they button back from mittens into fingerless mitts when he needs his fingers.

I have to force myself to knit fairly mindless things this time of year or I'll bog myself down with a bunch of complicated, unfinished projects.  I already started doing it earlier in the month.  I'm easily frustrated by the feeling of never finishing projects.  Which is why I like socks and mittens.

I have a pair of socks in the works again, too.  I'd forgotten to bring any "MAN" colored sock yarns with me from home, and it's pretty hard to find here, but we found a wool/acrylic blend at E-mart a few days ago (the same place I got the wool for the mitt/ens), in a variegated gray.  It's all a little drab, but I'm getting used to it.  There's just not a lot to choose from, especially as far as "MAN" colors go.

And soon, I want to knit me some form of fingerless gloves/mittens (hopefully cuter than my huge, black eyesores).  We'll see how it goes.

Maybe there will be more to post on the knitting front.

- catie

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.