Tonight's dinner was inspired by a meal I'd eaten last month with my co-workers. I'm a big fan of Vietnamese spring rolls and after rekindling my love for them at a phở restaurant in a neighborhood called Jeongja (a lovely mix of foreign restaurants/shopping there) we all went out to a restaurant that serves do-it-yourself spring rolls.
I was, as you may guess, in all kinds of epicurean heaven. The lettuce and cilantro and beansprouts and cellophane noodles and cucumber slivers and, most especially, the grilled duck slices, all wrapped in the cool, delicate embrace of edible rice paper, caused the rusty wheels in the long-dormant home cooking section of my brain to spring into action.
I. Could. Make. These. At. Home.
EUREKA! So after I'd spent my weekend cleaning and making my kitchen all kinds of purdy, I made a mental plan to cook two specific dishes: the mirin-glazed salmon in my previous post and the aforementioned spring rolls.
I managed, thanks to the help of my co-workers, to find everything I needed to make it a culinary event (in this case, cilantro - the key to an excellent combination for rice paper filling, and mirin - the key to glazing a mean salmon). Tonight I managed, between bites, to remember that I owned a camera and that I like taking pictures of food.
I watched Jamie Oliver cooking with fresh herbs and plants from his garden. What a lovely idea. If I didn't have a red thumb, I would probably try to grow herbs. Alas, I kill everything plant-like that I touch. Happily, this keeps the veg section at AK Plaza in business and the nice ladies that work there employed to assist hopeless foreigners another day.
I did have a bit of an after-dinner thing tonight. Although I did have a lovely dinner, I had less shrimp today than last time and there was just...the smallest hint of yearning for more.
Happily, and I'm still smiling about this one, I found a wine shop in AK Plaza that sells...yes, blessed readers...real cheese.
Let me type that again, slowly.
R E A L C H E E S E
I'm talking hard, strong, grateable, palest of yellows Parmesan Reggiano. My love for this cheese knows no time, nor boundary. Here it was, at long last, right near my subway stop these whole four months. It's as if, cherished reader, I had found one of you in the wine section. We embraced, I sniffed it a little and rubbed it on my face. The salesladies seemed to understand. They smiled knowingly, as if they too had come to know the deep and true love one can share with really old milk.
Come over. I'll make it for you. But you get to scale the salmon. That wasn't as fun as I thought it'd be. Obviously the top of the salmon was a good deal darker than I anticipated but that isn't burnt fish, that's caramelized mirin glaze. Ooh-de-lolly! The rice is jasmine rice (that's jasms to you, fam) and the salmon I got from a ritzy shopping center joined with the subway station closest to work. The lady was very helpful. Actually yesterday was the most successful shopping experience I've had here so far. Very nice. I bought the baby asparagus..ses? asparagii? asp... vegetables today as well as the mirin and the brown sugar. I haven't smelled real brown sugar for ages. It was intoxicating.
Anyhow, this plate lasted about 15 minutes under the scourge of my fork-wielding appetite. I had at it while watching Julia Child explain about cooking pâté inside a dough decorated to look like a branch and leaves. That's right. As I was eating, I was watching a cooking show. It's my favorite way to spend a meal. And you know, now that I'm cooking for myself, I'm not nearly as prone to eating dessert. After preparing to cook, cooking, eating and watching other people prepare, cook and eat, I am discovering that I am, to my surprise, full and satisfied. Eating out is great. Super convenient, etc. But it's nowhere near as satisfying or pleasurable. It's not an event and y'all know how much ol' Geoffwah likes events, especially when they center around food.
Now to introduce you to the lady who's put the well-sated smile on my lips and the turmeric in my cupboard: Nigella. She is sultriness. She is spices and honey and herbs and simmering sauces. She personifies the inviting smell of your mother's kitchen after mamaw's been cooking something extra special. She makes everything look easy and takes a sensible approach to ingredients and time-saving techniques in the kitchen that STILL allow you to eat well and, if you choose, healthily. Nigella's recipes, coupled with my morning exercise should lead me down the road to toe visibility in due time.
I look forward to that day, as I look forward to a day sometime soon when I can cook for you, loving reader, and leave you to do the dishes.
Shocked reader, I know. I know. I know. Calm down and have you a glass of tepid water. Breathe into this paper bag. Eyes closed. Head between knees.
Not mine, confused reader. Yours.
There we are. Your hair's a mess after putting your head between your knees but looks aren't important right now. Also you have an eyelash. Not there. There.
As you flick your errant lash to regions unknown, I must make a confession. As I look at you through the ornate scrollwork of the confessional grille, I see that time has been kind to you and that you've been moisturizing. For this, the Lord and I are pleased and truly grateful.
I write to you a changed man. In many ways. While you've clearly been spending your time shopping for well-priced exfoliants and eye creams made of the finest that nightingales have to offer, I have been working and living in a strange, strange land.
Korea. How I love her. She is comprised of so many Americanisms that one can hardly separate the two. They - the "purebloods" of Korea and we the hodgepodge of immigrant/native ancestry that make up Americans, are inextricably spun, twisted, braided, mashed, folded and spindled together. Their history with us, however, has not impacted us nearly as much as our history with them has impacted them.
Americans can go throughout their day, unaware that we were ever in Korea, that we had anything to do with her division, defense/destruction, or subsequent rise to fortune/decline into madness. But here, they think of it everyday. Every time they see a sign in English, or an American business, or a white or black foreigner, or most prominently, an American in uniform, they are reminded.
So Korea (South) has done what she can with what she's been given and, honestly, to have made such an empire out of so little in such a short amount of time is an enormous accomplishment. Monumental. It's a testament to the power of commerce and democracy in an impoverished nation.
The things that I despise: stupid commercials, affected emotion, terrible terrible fashion choices, loud people, liberal horn usage (this is car horns, Trumpet-wielding Reader), lack of empathy, lack of courtesy (occidental), excessive public vomiting...these are things I despise every and anywhere. Not just Korea. They happen a lot here, yes. But if they happened in front of me in America, I'd be just as peeved.
Truly.
Onto more pleasant subjects.
Work. Good Lord, I LOVE my job. LOVE IT. I hate to say it, possibly unemployed reader, as I know sometimes we don't love our jobs but SOMEHOW I love mine. And that "Good Lord" is in all due reference, I do pray to the Heavens in gratitude nightly.
I have moved into a new place. It's huge. Out in Bundang, a suburb created for the Seoul elite(much like the one I left in Ilsan). The new job is with the same company as the one I left iSponge for. This is a different location but with some of the same staff and administration.
I want to introduce you to some of my gentle lurves from the afternoon classes. During this time of the day I am completely exhausted and a little punchy from having danced and shimmied and belted nursery songs all day for the kindergartners.
These after-schoolers come in after a full day of elementary school (2nd grade). They're also exhausted and sometimes we just stare at each other with little strands of drool from the corners of our mouths to our shirt buttons. It's a party.
The completely delightful first afternoon class. They are well-behaved and pleasant. Kai, pictured here blurred due to his natural exuberance and his attempt to gross his classmates out with his flipped-out eyelids, is about as energetic as the kids get. He adds a lot of spice to a cream-of-wheat start to my afternoon. These kids are game for anything.
The second of the two afternoon classes. These kids I've had since last year and they are sharp as tacks, even though they look as jaded as a roomful of tiny tiny Korean Mafioso. They are witty and clever and love to laugh. Obviously, they are a pre-made comedy troupe and their timing is impeccable. I'll be touring with the green polo shirt kid in ten years. Watch for it. Wait for it. Yearn for it.
So yes, I do love work. I do enjoy my co-workers. I do enjoy making the curricula and all that that entails. I appreciate if double "that" is a rough read. Thanks for hanging on, steadfast reader. I'm fine, myself, just looking very forward to Christmas vacation when I get to fly back and see y'all.
If you are curious at all, these were taken with my new camera. Learning from my mistake last year in Tokyo (having dropped my new camera on the first day, effectively shattering the lens, rendering it paperweightish for the rest of the trip), I have purchased this:
Isn't it gorgeous? Isn't it stylish? Isn't it indestructible? Yes, yes it is. You can crush it, freeze it, sink it, swim it, use it, abuse it and drop it from six-and-a-half feet and it'll keep on a-tickin' boyhowdy.
For those of you who care, Loving Readers, I am sorry to have been away for so long. I ask your forgiveness.
Tonight's dinner was inspired by a meal I'd eaten last month with my co-workers. I'm a big fan of Vietnamese spring rolls and after rekindling my love for them at a phở restaurant in a neighborhood called Jeongja (a lovely mix of foreign restaurants/shopping there) we all went out to a restaurant that serves do-it-yourself spring rolls.
I watched Jamie Oliver cooking with fresh herbs and plants from his garden. What a lovely idea. If I didn't have a red thumb, I would probably try to grow herbs. Alas, I kill everything plant-like that I touch. Happily, this keeps the veg section at AK Plaza in business and the nice ladies that work there employed to assist hopeless foreigners another day.
I'm talking hard, strong, grateable, palest of yellows Parmesan Reggiano. My love for this cheese knows no time, nor boundary. Here it was, at long last, right near my subway stop these whole four months. It's as if, cherished reader, I had found one of you in the wine section. We embraced, I sniffed it a little and rubbed it on my face. The salesladies seemed to understand. They smiled knowingly, as if they too had come to know the deep and true love one can share with really old milk.
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