Happy 40th Anniversary KOCIS!

The new slogan.

I had the pleasure this week, to attend the 40th Anniversary party for KOCIS (Korean Culture and Information Service). It was held in the ballroom at The Westin Chosun in Seoul and was a beautiful venue for such a momentous occasion. There were only 2 other bloggers from The Korea Blog there with me in a room full of very important looking people, so I felt really honoured to be part of the celebration.

Photo Exhibit

There was a photo exhibition just as you entered the room. The exhibit was called The Dreams of KOCIS at the Age of 40. Inside, the room was set up with a centre stage and podium, cat walk, and a slew of round tables set for dinner and looking pristine. To get things started off inside there was an opening video showing KOCIS over the years. For the small group of foreigners in attendance there were live translation headsets which was a great touch. Countless times in Korea, for obvious reasons, so much gets past me, but not this evening. I got to take part and understand everything that went on throughout the evening.

The Venue

The MC's

The Masters of the Ceremonies were introduced and shortly there after came an awards ceremony for those people who have made a difference at KOCIS. There were speeches, and congratulations and many thanks given out. This went on for a long time, leaving people excited to move on to the next part of the evening.

Modern dance number.

K-Pop girl band F/X

Classical music performed by young students.

Music. The first of the entertainment segment was a modern dance number that was a little left field for my liking but still interesting. Really minimalist music and weird bodily contortions by the 3 men and one female dancer. It was a really nice juxtaposition to the candy coated K-Pop group F/X that was up next. This is my second time seeing Korea's super hot 'it' bands playing live and even though it's superficially entertaining to so sit and watch, I do NOT understand the national obsession there is with K-Pop. This is the second number the girls performed, one of their top songs. See for yourself.

Fashion. Next on the agenda was a fashion show. 'Hanbok- Clothing of the Wind' was the theme of the clothes showed by top Korean designer Lee Young-hee. It started out with very ornate and traditional hanbok fashions and then progressed to really modern and unique designs. I later found out this designer is quite controversial in Korea because she takes such liberties as changing the original style of hanbok, but in her defense she does such an incredible job at it. Hanbok is slowly losing its popularity in Korea. The younger generations find less and less opportunity to don such fashions. Yet Lee Young-hee, with her designs is combining the old look with something a little more fashionable and making it appealing to the modern Korean woman. Actually, I would be more than happy to wear some of the pieces I saw on the catwalk. Here is a selection of both the classic hanbok style and some modern twists of it.

Food. After many different things to feast our eyes on, it was finally time to indulge our taste buds. There was a special meal put together for the event , it was called 'Hansik with Stories'. Hansik 한 식 means a tradional Korean meal, usually composed of rice, soup, meat or fish and a vast array of side dishes, called banchan 반찬. The meal was prepared by a Korean traditional food specialist, Yoon Sook-ja. As the meal was being brought out, she took us through each of the dishes served and all the different ingredients, colours, symbols and tastes.

The first course was a plate of 3 tiny king crab rolls with citrus dressing. It was shortly followed by a pumpkin soups, one of my favorites in Korea. The main dish was grilled beef 'Neoboano' and a vegetable pancake. The beef was cooked rare and it was melt in your mouth delicious. The side dishes were kimchi, japchae, bulgogi, fruit kimchi, and a mixture of candied nuts. After this was steamed rice and a mussel and seaweed soup.

Banchan

Crab Rolls

Pumpkin Soup

The Main Course

Rice & Seaweed Soup

Dessert

Korean Sweet Tea

Suzy, Elenora & I in the middle. 

After dinner was a specially brewed Korean sweet tea, with a dish of fruits and deokk (rice cakes). In typical Korean style, the meal was served, consumed and cleared in record timing and the guests quickly dispersed. My blogging companions and I headed to Myeongdong and battled the holiday rush for coffees. It was a nice way to end a nice evening. Thanks KOCIS for including me in the celebrations!

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.