팥 죽 & Winter Solstice

Today, December 22nd, is winter solstice, the shortest day and longest night of the year. Thankfully that means slowly the days will be getting longer to get us through the winter. In Korea there is a traditional food for today, it is pat juk (팥 죽). Pat means red bean and juk, is a thick Korean soup, called porridge. The red bean, or azuki bean is central in Korea's cuisine, especially as a paste. (Look here for my blog on PAT BING SU, a summer dessert concoction based on the red bean).
I was out for lunch with my coworkers today and after a conversation about the tradition of eating 팥 죽  on winter solstice, we stopped into a juk restaurant and the head of the English Department, bought us each a takeout meal of 팥 죽 to have for dinner later this evening. The juk restaurant we went to was so small, with only 3 or 4 tables, but the line up was out the door.  People were flocking to get a bowl of it on this special day.
Each person we were with added something about the tradition when I asked about it. I was informed the reason to eat it is not only because it's a comfort food but it also wards away bad spirits in the year to come. 팥 죽 has deokk (rice cakes) in it, and you are to eat one for every year you have been alive for good luck. I am sure there are many variations to why it is eaten, but it still remains that on this particular day, 팥 죽 is a smart choice. I am looking forward to this evening, with the temperature hitting double digits below zero, to enjoying a warm bowl of this red bean porridge.

Tonight's dinner. 

I would have to eat 33 of these little rice balls!

Just Another Blog... about stuff.

December has been a surprisingly quiet month. It is the end of the year and classes are a few days short of being finished, so things are picking up with holiday festivities just around the corner. Chistmas falls on a weekend this year so with no extra time off, I am packing in as much as I can in the 2 days I have to celebrate. The plan is to spend Christmas Eve at home with Garry. We will make a trip to Noryangjin, the fish market is Seoul during the day and pick out our dinner. We are having a seafood feast of lobster and king crab. Sunday, Christmas will be spent partly at home, and then we'll head out later in the day. I am cooking us up a brunch, just like Mom's back home. I just got a copy of my Mom's mouth watering recipe for brie souffle topped with blueberry sauce and can't wait to try it out (a Christmas tradition at home). After a lazy Sunday of presents, mimosas and a healthy dose of Christmas spirit, we will make our way down to Osan for a Russian Christmas! Denis and Natalia (and my brand new godson Anthony), are hosting us for the evening. The only details I know so far are duck and vodka will be plentiful. Oh, and I am making dessert, definitely NOT my cooking specialty, especially here in Korea. I am hoping by Sunday, to have produced an impecable looking strawberry cheesecake. I will follow up with lots of photos to illustrate the succees and/or failure of the task next week. We also have theatre tickets for Friday evening, so we will be kept entertained and happy all weekend long.  

Totally unrelated to Christmas and holidays and festivities, Kim Jung Il is dead (great segway, I know). Yesterday the world found out about his death and everyone has been buzzing about it online since then. I think I am in a pretty iconic place to witness this world event. For the most part, South Korea has gone unchanged. The country kept on going, without even skipping a beat. The military has been put on a Red Alert, but aside from that, nothing has changed. Apparently there is a 10 day mourning period for the old fool, and then political changes will start to take place north of the border.  I guess time will tell to see how the events will unfold. It is so interesting reading and listening to world wide media and knowing this is all happening just a few hours away from where I live. There is so much speculation as to how this will unfold and what affect it will have mostly on Korea, but also the rest of the world. To read all the different perspectives and opinions is so interesting, now for the reality of it to actually unfold.

In other news, again, totally unrelated, last night was a huge bench marking occasion for KOCIS (Korean Culture & Information Service, who I blog for). KOCIS celebrated their 40th anniversary with a huge party in The Westin Chosun Ballroom. I went and met up with a few other of the Jeju bloggers and it was a really nice evening. Lots to write about and pictures to post, so stay tuned for an update.

OKitchen!

After the first failed attempt, I finally made it to a highly recommended restaurant in Itaewon, OKitchen. The restaurant itself has a cozy atmosphere and was toasty warm on a windy and cold Saturday afternoon. We made it there for lunch, running between noon and 2pm on weekends, and ordered off a prix fixe menu.

We started ordering by selecting one of the choice of three appetizers off the menu but were told the lunch actually came with all three. There was then a choice of three mains, then coffee and dessert. So even though the portions are small there are so many courses that leaving with a hungry belly definitely  isn't an issue.

Seafood plate

The first course to be brought out was a seafood plate with 6 bite sized pieces of raw fish. Each piece was flavored differently and presented beautifully. I wish I could say what the fish were or what the flavors we tasted were, but all I can write is that it tasted delicious.

Next to be brought out was the soup. It was even better. It was a bean soup with white kimchi. The soup was hearty and had big chunks of meat and vegetables in it. Perfect for a chilly afternoon.

Presented beautifully, the next course was a green salad.  It was garnished with a light touch of veggies and had a small chunk of melt in your mouth grilled chicken.

As a main, I chose an omelette with ricotta cheese and bacon. It was light and fluffy and filled generously with cheese. The bacon, along with fresh spinach and mushrooms were garnish. My boyfriend ordered the orecchiette bolognaise, simply shell pasta and sauce, but done to perfection. Flavorful with a hearty meat tomato sauce.  Mmmm, I am getting hungry again just thinking of it.

Ricotta Omelette

                                                             Orecchiette bolognaise

After lunch we were served hot coffee and a dessert. We shared a lemon tart and a small rich slice of chocolate cake. The perfect ending to a great meal.    

Coffee & dessert

Including wine, the bill came to about $60 for the 2 of us. In Korea, this is a pricey lunch, but for all the different courses and the great tasting food, it was worth it ten fold. During our meal, the owner was hanging about, chatting with all the different patrons. he stopped by our table and had a nice little chat. It was such a lovely meal, I am most definitely going to return to OKitchen to sample more of their menu. 

Here is a link to their website for more information. 

http://okitchen.pe.kr/

Making Kimchi 김 치!

Kimchi pots.

Last week I had the opportunity to duck out of school early for an awesome "field trip". Accompanied by a few other english teachers from my area, we were bused down to Suwon for an afternoon of kimchi (김 치) making and other cultural bits and pieces.

Group Shot, learning to make kimchi.

After a toasty hour long bus ride to my old neck of the woods, we arrived at Poh-Gi Kimchi Factory. We watched a quick little video on the company and what an integral part of Korea kimchi is (but I live here, I don't need to be convinced). The best sound bite from the poorly translated video was 'Korea is kimchi!' I love it. After the video we had a demonstration from an ajumma kimchi master. We crowded around her table and watched her slice all the right veggies, scoop all the right flavors and mix them altogether with expert hands. This lady was a pro. She was even born on November 22nd, which is National Kimchi Day in Korea!She showed us all the dozen or so ingredients that made the mix and I guess this is how everyone has different recipes, by using slight variations. Some put more or less, depending on personal taste. After making her concoction she individually went from person to person and popped a sample of the messy mix in our mouths. Like little birds in a nest she fed us. Priceless.

The Kimchi Master at work.

Skillful hands at work.

The key ingredients.

Combining all the parts into one.

Over the last year or so my personal opinion of kimchi (김 치) has wavered. Upon my arrival to Korea I loved it. I had no problem eating it with every meal and am convinced it kept me healthy for the most part of the winter. After a while though, strangely I just went off it. All of a sudden the kimchi was too strong or too vinegary and it no longer agreed with my palate. It couldn't have been just the kimchi at my school, because no matter where I ate it, my love for it had seriously depreciated (white kimchi was excluded, as was kimchi jiggae, one of my favorite Korean soups). Luckily, over the past few months it has worked its way back into my good books. The new school I am at definitely makes a milder and much tastier version than my previous school, so that helps. Not to mention that well, I live in Korea, and as the video stated Korea is kimchi, so if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

Hard at work.

Okay, so back to the task at hand. After a lovely demonstration and some delicious sampling, we were set off on our own. We actually did the Coles Notes version of making kimchi. We were more the finishing touch, connecting the cabbage with the rest of it. We had pre-soaked and salted cabbages and we just had to master the art of inserting the rest of the ingredients. I will attempt to list off what was in the concoction, but I am sure I'll miss a few: red pepper paste and flakes, salt, sticky rice, sugar, fish oil, anchovies, garlic, and as for the veggies radish, onions, green onions, leeks, chives and some other leafy greens. We were shown to basically peel back the layers of cabbage and get as much of the mixture in between the leaves as possible. Once it was coated, you pressed it back into shape and tried to squeeze out all the air pockets to get out all the carbon dioxide and aid in the fermenting process. It was messy to do, but also quite satisfying. Even without participating in the whole process from beginning to end, I had a new appreciation for kimchi. It is a fine art. Once we were done, someone came around and took our quarter head of seasoned cabbage, and syphoned it into a bag (I some how got lucky and did 2 batches). By the time we were ready to leave a few hours later our kimchi was labeled and vaccum sealed, and it looked like we just plucked them off a grocery store shelf.

The final product.

Once our kimchi was done, we headed off to the Poh-Gi factory. We got a birds eye view of the whole process and again, I had a new appreciation. I loved seeing the behind the scenes process that turns a plain cabbage into the kimchi that I consume everyday here. Here are some shots of the factory kimchi making process.

The start of the process. The art of Kimchi.

Radishes on the right, and cabbages on the left.

More Cabbage!

Soaking and salting the cabbage.

The factory.

The final touch along the line.

Next stop was a kimchi museum/information centre and it was so fascinating! Ok, you might not think a kimchi museum sounds like a rip roaring good time but it was really informative, I learned a lot. For instance, before the Korean War, kimchi was always white. During the war, the Japanese used pepper powder for an ingredient in tear gas. Eventually peppers were then used to Korea to grow and eat. They found there way into kimchi, thus evolving a whole new way to enjoy kimchi. You always hear how healthy it is, and although I knew part of it was true I also thought it was a lot of Korean national pride, but kimchi really is a wonder food. Without getting into all the scientific bits, the more you eat, the better it is. It is packed with vitamins and good bacteria and it has tons of health benefits. The Koreans are definitely on to something.

The museum also showcased the many different types of kimchi. The most popular are cabbage and radish I think, and one of my favorites is the white kimchi. Some of the others, in a mixture of Korean and English include cucumber kimchi, dried radish kimchi, yeolmoo, kkackdugi, chonggak, green onion, bosan, sugbacgi and a white/watery kimchi (named maximowiczia chinensis for the use of the five-flavored fruit,  I think). Here are some pictures of the many different types.

After the museum me made deokk (떡) . Deokk is traditional rice cake (not like the kind we eat back home, the real kind) and eaten as dessert in Korea. One of the english teachers summed it up perfectly by calling it the 'anti-dessert'. Some versions of deokk are nice when thay have sweet fillings, or are powdered with sugar. But overall, it is just a sticky, doughy version of rice. There was an awesome ajumma showing us how to make it. Part of the process is taking a mammoth sized hammer and with all your weight banging down on the sticky rice. She was amazing, with the strength of an ox, this lady was the jack of her trade. After pounding, still hot, the glutenous mass was cut in rows, sliced and then powdered for us to eat. It was nice to eat hot and fresh but definitely not a dessert food I crave for with my sweet tooth.

The Deokk Ajumma. (떡 아 주 마)

Fresh, hot deokk (떡).

The tools to pound the sticky rice dough.

Next on the agenda was Korean Fashion 101. Guys (남 자) and gals (여 자) all got a turn at trying on hanbok (한 봌), Korean traditional clothing. I zoned in on an orange and black number (shocking, right?) and although it was beautiful, it was about12 inches too short and looked a little strange on me. Some of the women's hanbok styles are so beautiful, and it was nice to get a chance to see them up close to appreciate all the details. So after a little photo shoot, we got out of costume and the afternoon started to wind down.

Hanbok  (한 봌).

All decked out in traditional Korean hanbok.

Last stop was for refueling. We sat around at the end of the day and sampled some more delicious and spicy kimchi from Poh-Gi, with a few other dishes to accompany it. Great ending to a fabulous day. Thanks for such a great opportunity!

The final setting.

Deokk (떡)

Anne, one of my new coteachers. 

G'Bye Osan.... Hello Anyang!

                                

After 12 really happy and eventful months, I have left Osan. It seems like only yesterday I arrived in Korea and felt overwhelmed, a little anxious and nervous. I remember the first weekend of awful jet lag and knowing no one and being afraid to wander too far from my apartment. I remember the first time I had to stand up in front of my kids at school and the fear that accompanied it. So much has changed in 12 months.

I finished my contract with Osan Elementary School on November 1st and have signed on a new short contract with a new school in Anyang. Although technically Osan was on the Seoul subway line, it was the far, far outskirts. It suited me so well and I had little to no complaints for 12 months in my new home. But now I feel like I am living the high life.

Anyang is Seoul proper. As cliche as it is, as soon as I arrived here I felt electric. The area of Seoul is a buzz with people. I am not in the central area of Seoul and when I look out my 16th storey window I see a perfect mixture of high rise buildings and mountains in the back ground. It is amazing.

My new school is very different from my first school. The students here are known for their english proficiency and the levels are way beyond what I was teaching before. On my first day of class, I had students in full blown conversations with me and some even (successfully!) cracked a few jokes. Without Mrs.Kim translating, this never would've happened with my Osan kids.

I used to teach grades 3 through 6, where as here, I only have to worry about grade 5 and 6, a welcome change. Less lesson plans, and a higher level of english. It is actually much easier to teach high level english because the students here actually understand what I am teaching them, instead of the need for a coteacher to be continually translating into Korean. A-sa! Everything is such a welcome change! As I said, my year in Osan was amazing, I just feel like this is a great change of pace for me.

Being in Seoul now offers so many benefits as well. We are so much closer to anywhere and everywhere we go. If we need to grab a taxi home, it's so much cheaper... and the food! On our first day of exploring I had lunch with Garry and we stopped into a cafe and had a sandwich. Nothing too special you may be thinking? In Osan, we would NEVER find a sandwich. And this wasn't just a boring sandwich, it was a toasted double decker club sandwich, possibly my first in Korea. Osan was a tiny little place and now we have just stepped into the cosmopolitan world of Seoul! Happiness.

My contract at Pyeongchon Elementary School is just 4 months long. There are major budget cutbacks going on in Korea right now and a lot of "restructuring".  March 1st will most likely be the start of the new 12 month contract and who knows where I will be then. The plan is to come home after this gig is up, but I am so happy in Korea and feel so pleased with the new change, who knows what will happen. Only time can tell. But for now, I plan on sucking out every last bit of enjoyment and experience Korea to its fullest in the next few months.  

Babies & Wedding Bells

A few weekends ago was a special one in Korea for me. It was more typical of life back in Toronto than my usual weekend shananigans here. I got to hang out with a 2 week old baby boy and attend a Korean wedding.

Baby Anthony,  2 weeks old.

My friend Natalia just gave birth to a beautiful little baby boy, Anthony. I loved seeing her go through her 9 months of pregnancy just because it reminded me so much of all my missed girlfriends at home. Natalia and her husband Denis lived very close to me in Osan and I saw her all the time. Unfortunately with the move to Anyang I won't get to see Natalia and her family as much but Saturday was a great little dose of baby for me!

A Best Friends Korean Wedding

One of my coworkers invited us to her best friends wedding. It was such a nice opportunity and another part of Korean culture I was fascinated to be part of. Korean wedding are celebrated very differently than the way we do it at home. I am not sure how typical this wedding was but here is how it all went down.

We arrived with my Juwon just after 1:00 to the wedding hall in Seoul. Wedding halls in Korea go through a similar process to cattle being herded. There were 5 floors to this hall and each wedding lasted less than an hour so people were being shipped in and out constantly. There were 3 main parts of the whole ordeal. Part one was the food. Garry and I got meal tickets and before really seeing the bride and groom we were ushered to a room laid out with table after table of prepared food, all mixed and mingled with guests from weddings throughout the building. The hall was overlooking the Han River so we had a great view to look out on. The food was Korean banquet style. We had soup, rice, kimchi, sushi, seafood, salad, meat and fruits. Juwon was busy helping out the bride so Garry and I made our own way through the meal.

The wedding meal.

After a quick chowdown, we were back upstairs and seated by 2pm for the second part of the afternoon to commence. This was the main part of the wedding. It was done in front of all the family and friends. They walked down the isle, brides family on the right, grooms on the left. Someone sang to the bride and groom, they exchanged vows, said a few words. It was quite short and sweet. And to be honest, judging by the guests preoccupation with phones, kids, and cameras, it looked like no one was paying close attention to what was actually happening. Once the actual ceremony was finished and they walked back down the isle, as husband and wife it was picture time. Pictures with friends, pictures with family, there were lots of flashes going off. The closest family members, as you can see in the picture, are wearing hanbok, traditional Korean clothing. Although not a lot of people still wear it, it is quite common to see during festivals, ceremonies and celebrations.

Father & the Bride.

The venue.

Husband & wife.

The family. 

My coworker from Osan, Juwon and I.

Once all the cameras were put to rest, the majority of guests left. It is tradition that only the family stays for the last part (if it even occurs at all- not all couples choose to do this part). We were lucky enough to be invited to watch the traditional Korean wedding ceremony, by far the most fascinating bit. I had seen this performed at The Korean Folk Village and was impressed that the rituals were almost identical at a real ceremony.

The bride and groom changed out of their western wedding wear and donned the ornate and beautiful wedding hanbok, similar to that worn by royalty in the past . Because it is so detailed and requires so many different pieces, I was told people rarely buy their own wedding hanbok, it is usually just rented because it costs so much, and will obviously never be worn again. After seeing the outfits, I can see why. We were brought to a small room with a low table all set up for the proceedings. First the grooms parents sit down with the couple. A few words are exchanged and dates are thrown at the couple and caught in a table cloth. The more the dates are caught the more prosperous they are, something along those lines. The parents switch and it's the brides parents turn to take part. I was told this doesn't always happen because the grooms family is more important in the ceremony as the bride gets married off and sent to his side. The couple themselves then do a few rituals like drinking from the same cup and sharing some of the food. Lastly, and ever so slightly entertaining to the onlookers, the groom must piggy back the bride (in their lavish costumes, not an easy feat) and circle the table once. By the looks of things, from then, it was a done deal, introducing Mr. & Mrs.

All in all, it was a great afternoon. I really enjoyed the Korean wedding part. Here are a few snaps to check out how details the garbs are to set the scene. Thanks Juwon, for including Garry and I in the festivities!

The setting

The grooms parents taking part. 

                                             Parents throwing dates at the newly weds.

Piggybacking the bride.

Introducing the newlyweds!!!!