Back in Seoul

I’m back from 3 weeks in New York. Had a lovely time with my family and friends… It was too short! Here are some pictures.

While I was in New York, I stuffed my suitcases with a lot of cheese, Indian spice mixes, shoes, books I ordered from Amazon which I either couldn’t find or were too pricey here, and I finally bought myself an iPod. A cute little 8g nano. This will definitely get me to use the treadmill more often. Really.

Got back to Seoul last Wednesday, and I picked up a nasty cold between JFK and Narita. Combined with jet lag and a fresh bout of homesickness, the virus kept me up for 5 nights with an average of 3 hours of sleep/day and slapped me with laryngitis to boot. I finally got 7 consecutive hours of sleep last night, so I’m feeling much better, but my voice is still a pathetic sounding creaky whisper.

This Sunday was a real score in terms of finding groceries that I had previously thought unavailable in Korea.
Longanisa – Thanks to this post from maryeats, Gavin and I now have a new place to go for Sunday lunch -- Little Manila, a temporary patch of the Philippines that sprouts up on Daehangno a little ways up from the Hyewha station, on Sunday mornings. Picked up 8 Longanisa sausages for 2,500 Won, brought them home and eagerly cooked them up. This was my first experience with longanisa so they surprised me with their spicy sweetness and soft texture. The caramelized sugar did a number on my pan. Next time I’ll have to cover my pan with tin foil
String beans – Since string beans aren’t really a regular part of the Korean cuisine, I have never seen them in local markets or even at the larger marts like Lotte or E-Mart. But there were plenty to be found at the Little Manila market. 500g for 3,000 Won. There were also long beans for 2500 Won!
Fu yu (fermented bean curd) – finding the long beans inspired me to hunt down fu yu. Some time ago I had glimpsed a jar of this stinky tofu at a Chinese grocery store inside the 중앙시장 (Jung Ang Market). I was feeling under the weather, so Gavin went to the market to get some for me. Fu yu is really really stinky and an acquired taste for many people, I like it stir fried with spinach and garlic. Call me crazy, but sometimes I even like a little bit of it stirred into plain oatmeal. Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it. Last night I cooked up some of the long beans with generous helpings of the fu yu from the Jung Ang Market, which was particularly stinky, sending even Gavin the Iron-Stomached to the other side of the room… Next time I’ll use it more sparingly. Anyway, while he was at the Chinese grocery store, Gavin also spied…
Pei daan (Mandarin: pi dan) (aka thousand year old eggs, aka century eggs) - They aren’t nearly that old, but the duck eggs get their black color by being preserved in ashes and quicklime. You can find them in some cold appetizers, or served on tofu, or cooked in congee with pork. Next weekend I think I’ll make some pork congee with it -- hot congee is a perfect comfort food for this time of year, as the really crisp cold part of fall has finally descended upon Seoul…

Other than trying to get over this godforsaken cold, I spent my first week back in Seoul bouncing between design work and cooking. The design stuff is a logo and website for my brother’s company, and the cooking consisted of tinkering with foreign dishes in the kitchen (so far, it’s been the Filippino longanisa, Chinese long beans with fuyu,, and Pakastani Achar Gosht – rated thumbs up, thumbs down, thumbs down, respectively, by Gavin).

Coming up… we are visiting Kwangju this weekend to see the Biennale, then I will start Korean class again. If I study a little before my placement test, maybe I can make it into the beginner’s level 3 class this time!