Feeding My Passion

Anne and Ryan mentioned, on several occasions, that oisobagi (aka oi kimchi, oi = cucumber) was probably their favorite kimchi when they got back from Asia. Since it’s a Summer kimchi because cucumbers are only in season during the Summer (the produce here is very seasonal, love that, at least it’s easy to love it because it’s Summer), I thought I’ve give it a try before the cucumbers became either 1) scarce or 2) expensive.

Rob T, another foreign English teacher who lives in Byeongjeom not too far away and I picked up 20 cukes and a few more ingredients since I already had most of them in my growing pantry. Oh, but first I had to find a good recipe for it. Not having a cookbook yet (I have 2 good ones on the way from What The Book out of Itaewon.), I did some research online and found one that struck me as the best one for me to do, lots of flavor, not too difficult, and scaling it (doubling in this case) was very easy.

So we shopped and sliced and brined, grated and chopped, measured and mixed, drained and rinsed, until everything was ready for the stuffing. As you can see, we did all the prep in my bedroom, on my bed and the floor since my kitchen really is very small and I don’t have a desk yet. Hopefully I’ll get one this week. But until then, improvisation has been key, and never more so than when making kimchi in my little place with my tiny little kitchen.

I’m looking forward to my next paycheck as well, which I’ll get on the 8th, so I can start doing some real cooking again. I mean, I love rice and tofu as much as the next person, of course, not if that person is Korean, in which case, I love it about half as much as they do. The subject of food comes up in class for a couple of reasons, one of them is our lessons at school often include something food-related. And I don’t exactly discourage any conversation about food. I’m curious what their favorite foods are, if they like to cook, if their parents (overwhelmingly their mother) are good cooks and what they cook. So I asked them what their favorite foods were. About half the class said rice was one of their top two. Rice! I don’t think I can imagine American kids telling me that bread or potatoes was in the top 5, or 10, or 20 even! The love for rice here is deep and strong.

Anyway, I do really like kimchi, tofu, and rice, but not quite like most Koreans do. Though I do like it a lot more than most non-Asian Americans.

To get my E-2 (work) visa, I flew to Guam last Wednesday since Guam is the nearest US territory, and got my work visa from the Korean consulate there. The immigration thing is kind of complicated, especially since the rules are always changing. Normally people go to Fukuoka, Japan, and that would have been my preference as well, since I’m planning on going to Japan at some point during the year. But the paperwork from the University of Missouri wasn’t perfectly in order, so I had to go to a Korean consulate in the nearest US territory. Fortunately I didn’t have to go back to the US!

Guam was interesting, and much more expensive than Korea. Because the Korean consulate closes at 5p, and I got off the plane Wednesday at 3:30, I jumped in a taxi to get over there quickly. The 10 minute ride was US$20. Visa: US$45. I called my resort from the consulate and asked when I could catch the next airport shuttle. The one I was supposed to be on (they knew when I was coming in) was the last one of the day. Great. Taxi to the resort: US$40 (the guy at the Korean consulate took pity on me, called another Korean he knows on Guam, and asked him to drive me for $40, otherwise a taxi to the resort would have been $50+. I Only came with $170, and I was going to be there for 4 days, so I started to think about what I was going to eat, and I don’t mean about the delicious variety that Guam has to offer, I was thinking about the most high-energy foods I could consume for the lowest price. Gotta say, cheese Spam is a little too salty for me, but washed down with one of the two free beers in my minibar (unfortunately both of them were Budwiser), it wasn’t too bad. So for the next few days I took the free resort shuttle to the big shopping areas and walked around a little, and ate some real food, Japanese ramen (not Korean ramyeon) on Thursday and Vietnamese lemongrass chicken on Friday. After a little shopping for Kamila, and a couple postcards, I was down to approximately $4, just enough for some more crappy food to get me through the next 24 hours before my plane left on Saturday afternoon. So I didn’t have anything to eat from Friday night until they served food on the airplane at about 5:30p on Saturday. I lost some weight.

Enough of that sad story, and it is sad, because there are a tremendous number of cuisines on the island, and it’s a beautiful place, so it would have been nice to do some interesting (not necessarily expensive) eating, see the beaches north and south of Tamuning, and do some exploring outside of the places where the transportation was free. I’ve got a lot of other places I want to see in Asia, but if I ever find myself back in Guam, I’ll bring a lot more money or a lot of reduced-sodium Spam.

It was funny, even though everyone on Guam spoke English very, very well, I couldn’t wait to get back to Korea, I feel much more at home here in Korea. It was a relief to make myself understood on Guam just by speaking complete sentences and not breaking out the English/Korean dictionary, but Korea is much more convenient and interesting to me. And plus, the jjimjilbangs. There’s a nice one a few blocks away from my apartment, and I’ve gone to it every week for the past month. Happiness.

Plus cooking for myself rocks! I usually wouldn’t cook for myself, but since I’m in a testing/experimental phase with the cuisine, I want to try cooking a couple new dishes every week. I haven’t perfected my vegetable pajeon yet, but I’m working on it. My dukbokki is pretty good, happy with that one. I made spicy myeulchi bokkem (stir-fried sardines) last week that turned out really well, and my sigeumchi namul (spinach with garlic, soy, and sesame oil) was pretty good too. I’m going to make some grilled mackerel this week. Once I get my first paycheck, I’m going to make some oisobaggi (cucumber kimchi) before I lose the season. And then some mul (water) kimchi. After a few batches of those, I’ll be happy to help someone make some of their Winter kimchi. Oh, there’s the big Namdo food festival in Jeollanam-do in October. Can’t miss that! My school’s Korean owner and the Korean teacher are just about ready to teach my classes for me and set up a kitchen at the school so I can cook for them. They find it quite funny that I’m so enthusiastic about cooking.

I haven’t been elbowed by any ajumans anywhere yet, although I took a pretty good bump on the bus from someone who I normally would have asked for an apology, but I understand it’s just probably par for the course here. No problem. I can understand some jostling in the stores though, those jujubes are big and beautiful! There are 3 supermarkets within about 6 blocks of my apartment, so I’m all good for food supplies.

Getting a netbook (I’m going to Yongsan electronics market the first weekend after I get my first paycheck) will let me play the yoga DVDs I brought, and that will be very nice. I’ll also be able to do some real blogging as well, which I’m really looking forward too. And since every laptop and netbook has a webcam, I’ll be able to Skype from my apartment, which will be wonderful. Right now, there’s a PC-bang that has webcams that I can use, and I’ve been using it everyday to talk with Kamila, which has been a true blessing, but it’s one of the few PC-bangs I’ve found that does have webcams. Fortunately it’s close and inexpensive.

There’s a nice park just a couple blocks away from my apartment that I had no idea was there until one of the other foreign teachers showed me last weekend. I was very excited and have been there a couple of times since. The funny workout equipment in the parks is quite…uh, funny, and of very limited benefit for me, but it’s nice to see large swaths of grass and sit by the fountain.

I’m getting my medical exam next week so I can get my alien registration card, which will lead to my medical insurance, pension, and bank account. All is well!