Amanda Takes Off...

Yesterday Master posted told me this on Facebook.

아만다 잘 자내죠? 한국은 오늘이 설날이에요. 떡국먹는날. 아만다[가] 떡국 맛있게 만들어줘요~

Amanda are you well? Today it's Korean New Year. It's the day we eat rice cake soup. Amanda make some delicious rice cake soup.

Of course, Korea's a half a day ahead, so today it's Lunar New Year Eve. But I didn't need Master to tell me what day it was! I had already bought some (brown!) rice cake disks for soup.

We were originally going to have some for lunch, but long story short, it ended up becoming an early dinner. Diana, Min Gi, and the baby came over. Mark was picking up his lover at the airport, and couldn't come over for lunch, but when the schedule got messed up, they were able to come over for dinner.

The Spread

We had rice cake soup, mushroom bibimbap, spicy tofu, king oyster mushrooms, cucumbers, Asian pears, and dried seaweed. In this picture the table was set for four, but when we added two place settings and some wine, it was a true Korean spread, with dishes completely covering the table.

Good Man and Mark

Good Man found an interesting article with historical information about the military/dictatorship government, US puppet government, and Japanese colonizers government trying to get rid of Seollal.

The cartoon below (from 1980) shows most people walking toward "modernization" and "solar new year" and only a few people walking toward "lunar new year."

As a piece of trivia, 2012 is the Year of the Dragon (specifically the water element), although in Kazakhstan it's the Year of the...Snail.

Happy new year!

"Oh my God! A 붕어 빵 thingy!"

Yes indeed, yesterday I bought an iron to make red bean paste fish pastries! Yes, I spent $20 on something completely ridiculous, and I don’t care!

Long time readers might remember this flash card. In Korean, when two people look alike (like a mother and daughter), you say they look like these cakes, because the cakes are made with a mold.

While I was fawning over the iron, an older white male, Korean female couple (I presume based on his Korea War Vet baseball cap, her accent, and the fact that we were in a Korean grocery store) stopped. The woman thanked me because she had been looking for an egg mold and my exclamations over the fish grill helped her find the egg mold. Then the man looked at Good Man said, “Do you generally let her buy what she wants?”

Good Man laughed and nodded, "Yes."

"That’s what I do, too," he said.

The wife laughed and said, "That is the key to a happy marriage!"

Today I made some fish pastries using banana waffle crusts and chocolate filling and cream cheese filling. Ooooh, so delicious.

Frowning Chocolate Fish

"Ahh! You're squishing me!" Cream Cheese Fish

I bought Spam today.

To eat.

For dinner I made 부대 찌게, which is essentially "army stew." Story has it that it was created during/after the Korean War, and it's essentially a sodium-fest of processed meats, whatever veggies you have on hand, and ramyeon noodles.

Into the pot went red pepper paste, soy sauce, sugar, and minced garlic. I added water and brought it to a boil, then tossed in leeks, onions, scallions, Mother's kimchi, and hot green peppers (from my garden, since I did get a small crop). After a few minutes of cooking, I tossed in turkey Spam, turkey sausages, and tofu. After a few more minutes I added ramyeon, sprouts, enoki mushrooms, and a dash of sesame oil.

I served it with rice, some potato banchan, and an Asian pear for dessert.

After several bites, Good Man said, "This budae jjigae is perfect. If you ever lose your job, you can open budae jjigae restaurant."

I stared at him.

He shrugged, "Yeah, that is a compliment! Only thing I liked in military was budae jjigae, and this is just like that. I want more."

Mother likes to watch TV programs that make her cry.

My first day here, we watched a program (Love in Asia) about foreign wives, specifically Southeast Asian wives. A Filipina woman was visiting her family with Korean husband. The husband bought a younger sibling a laptop for school. Mother cried. I asked if she would have let Good Man marry a Southeast Asian woman, she said no way and then cried some more at the program.

Weekday mornings, there's a program that follows one person, or a family, for the week. Last week's program followed a 91-year old woman in Ulleungdo who dives for fish and seafood as a living. (These women are rapidly dying off and it's pretty incredible what they can do.) As is typical in Korea, the woman was referred to as "Grandmother" throughout the entire program.

Mother and I watched the program together. Mother cried at times. I cried at times. And Saturday we headed off to Ulleungdo...

Ulleungdo Fishmarket

The first day of the tour, on the tour bus, Mother looked out the window and said, "This was the view from the program. Mother's house is somewhere up here...

The first night, at dinner, Mother chatted with the waitress about Grandmother and her son (also in the program). The island population is small, so of course our waitress knew who she was.

The next day, before dinner, Mother left. I had been listening to her conversation with Sister, but I was sure I had misheard her. I looked at Sister, "Where'd she go?"

"Guess."

"To find Grandmother's house?"

"Yep."

I laughed. "Really?"

When Mother returned before dinner, she proudly announced she had found the house.

We actually had two dinners that night. First we stopped for some gimbap for me. Mother chatted with ajumma at the restaurant about...Grandmother. Of course.

Raw, Moving Squid

Then we headed to the fish market so Sister and Mother could eat some raw seafood. While Mother was choosing the stall to eat at, I dipped my head down. "Mother, look behind you."

Mother swiveled her head, "Is that her?" She turned to the fishmonger. "Is that Grandmother?"

"Yes."

"아이고, 세상애..." Oh my goodness, oh my God...

Fishmongers

Mother went and introduced herself to Grandmother and all was good in the world. Unfortunately, Grandmother was not down with photos, so I have no proof that Mother really met Grandmother, but this happy look on Mother's face says it all.

"아이고, 세상애..."

Mother won't let me cook (yet), and she's afraid I don't know how to use the subway and will get lost/die/be kidnapped/gorge myself of Dweji Bars if I leave the house alone, so all I've been eating is Korean food. For all of my bitching about Mother bitching about what (when, why, how, how much) I eat, she is trying to be accommodating. Of course, we only got there after Mother lectured me on how fabulous Korean food is and how I should eat it all the time.

I sighed and said, slowly, "Mother, in America we had one American meal. And then we had Thai food with rice. And then we had Korean food. In America, you ate more Korean food than American food. Right?" Mother admitted I was right. "I don't only want American food. I want it sometimes."

"OK."

At breakfast, Mother told me to eat my vegetables. Breakfast was cabbage in an olive oil and vinegar sauce, cucumbers, pepper strips, apple chunks, and an English muffin with strawberry jam. I had eaten most of it, when she was telling me I should make a salad every day or breakfast.

I said, "But usually, in America, we don't eat salads for breakfast."

"Why not?"

I thought for a moment and finally settled on "it's a different country."

"What do you eat?"

"Cereal or oatmeal or bread [Korea's idea of bread is nothing like America's, but I don't go into it], fruit, maybe bacon or eggs, juice, coffee... Sometimes we eat rice with milk and cinnamon."

"Rice with milk?" Sister asked.

"[Good Man] hates it."

Mother asked, "Fruit? What kind of fruit?"

"Apples, bananas, kiwis, strawberries..."

Mother disappeared for a moment and comes back with two bananas in her hand. She sliced the bananas over our salads. Then I watched with disbelief as she rolled her pieces around in the olive oil sauce.

Mother asked what I want to eat and I told her the truth: a sandwich. We settled on left-over curry and I forget about the sandwich. At dinner, Mother told me she's made sandwiches. She handed me two slices of the darkest bread I've ever seen in Korea (which isn't saying much). I looked at the filling. She'd cooked and mashed up potatoes, carrots, scallions, and onions. And this is a fine example of what Koreans think "bread" is.

I asked if she has any black pepper. She said we'll get some at Costco next week.

We're touring Ulleungdo and Dokdo. I knew that food would be included and I knew it would be seafood, seafood, seafood. I hate seafood and fish, with the exception of tuna (canned—I know), but I used to be a vegetarian, so I am used to eating what I can and leaving the rest.

We had some tofu with our lunch, and it was delicious. I asked for more and the server said they didn't have any more. Mother pulled the server aside and said quickly and quietly, "My daughter-in-law is having a hard time with all of the Korean food and doesn't really like fish. Can you please get some more tofu?"

Five minutes later, I got a huge plate filled with hot slabs of tofu, fresh from the kitchen.

We're eating pretty much the same lunch as the day before, except now the soup is too fishy to eat, and I can't bear the thought of a bowl of rice for the fifth meal in a row. Mother tells Sister to go take me to find a sandwich. Neither GS25 nor FamilyMart have sandwiches, so I pick up a jar of fruit salad, some string "cheese," some crackers and some juice. I expect Mother to lecture me about the crackers, but instead she says, "Good, now you can have your cheese. And for dinner, you can have gimbap and we will eat raw octopus."