Sister and Mom

For those who might be interested, this summer has been a great leisure for me. I scraped my cutline score for an important test (barely, mind you) after wandering around breathing and living the test, resembling a ghost, and after that it has been.... free time!

Okay. Not exactly. I still have to figure out how to work with this complicated LSAC website, which is in charge of the whole law school application process. I still struggle with the FAQs and How-To-Dos and all those clicks and transcripts and recommendations and of course, the essay. The personal statement. My frivolous attempt to express myself in words, trying to appeal to law schools with something I hope I have, dreams and futures, and racking up whatever I have tried to achieved in college. And high school. Overall, my life.

Now other than these meager aspects of my life which should have do not occupy an overwhelming portion of my life, I have spent this time meeting old friends, trying to revive this blog, and spend with my mom and my sister Yoonmee.

When I am at home, not to brag, we try out so many new dishes. With two people, you can only eat a certain amount, and cooking small portions aren't always worth it. Then you always need to be up for a challenge, to go through a scorching afternoon fiddling with the oven and washing, chopping, roasting, stir frying whatever ingredients while peeking at new recipes after comparing multiple ones and picking the perfect recipe and pulling through it without any doubts (I should have used her recipe it had more sugar, no his had more spunk, no his was more unique ...)and then you have a new repertoire for dinner.

This one on top is not a new repertoire. A little messy, but don't miss the details. A soft-boiled egg, noodles mixed with pepper paste, veggies, cucumbers, kimchi, more kimchi, and sesame seeds!

A peach salad I tried out. The peaches were roasted, mozzarella cheese ripped, almonds and pine nuts tosssed, pesto made with pine nuts, mint, basil and olive oil. The peaches were still juicy, and went well with the pesto :)

And with talks and dinners with mom and sis, we never miss out on the wine. This wine from rioja was compared with another spanish one, but tempranillo is still a grape varietal we have to get used to. :)

Next to that is another dinner, just mom and me. Roasted grape tomatoes, almonds (chopped), mozzarella, olive oil and salt. With white wine :)

I made my sister cocktails often this summer, with gin, white wine, plum wine, tonic water. She always loves them! Definitely not a picky drinker when it comes to sweet cocktails. 

We talk about future, English, college, random news, gossip, and when it comes to the second bottle, we just don't remember anymore. 

Ah, I will miss these cooking sessions/talking sessions with my mom and sister. Only two more days and I am off to dear Amherst...

Olive Oil and Salt.

Now as I am getting into habit of posting habitually, I save the pictures first, in hope that these pictures will lure me into writing my post quicker, and give me more pressure will power.

I woke up once early, looking through the fridge, and was wondering what I should do. I have always dreamed of baking somethings savory and sweet and with olive oil. Olive oil is one of my favorite everything. As a condiment, as a spread, as a dip, as a flavor itself (olive oil ice cream!! Otto in NYC puleazzee come to me!! SQUEAL.) I have tried it in granola, spread on toast, on bread in peanut butter sandwiches (instead of butter), with baguettes and salt, in spain, in salads, ahh the list goes on. But, always with salt. Salt and olive oil go together like sisters, twins, best friends, like bread and butter, like peanut butter and jelly, granola and yogurt, milk and cookies, like honey and gorgonzola, dark chocolate and port, and on.........

At last, I have tried it in cake. 

This rosemary olive oil cake was born. Leftover rosemary intrigued me. (why did I buy this? I forgot.... I think it was due to some cookies I wanted to make. <coming soon I will upload pictures first -.^) Found some leftover pear and almond studded dark chocolate, chopped them up and mixed them in. 

Only those who have tried the warm cake with gooey chocolate with moist crumb with a spike of savory olive oil will know how delicious this cake was. 

Even my mom who does not approve my baking, said she would have another slice. (Okay, I finished cleaning up the kitchen even before she woke up. So there.)

Afternoon was another cooking project. Making homemade dumplings! We looked up some recipes. My mom was so confident that homemade dumplings had a different touch to it. Her dumpling memories were always warm and yummy. 


And chopping raw pork was so tough. You chop them roughly, chop them again, then finely so the flavor of the pork can integrate into all of the ingredients. My sister started off and then left them droppings to me. 

We add pork, chives, tofu, kimchi, sesame oil, and on. And then we mix with hands. 

Experimental dumplings being steamed. 

They were okay. Mediocre. Ah. Our disappointment. Then we were on a roll. We ripped apart the original dumplings we were making, went out and bought more wrappings. We added more kimchi. Made another few. Steam. Eat. Added more kimchi. More chives. All of the leftover tofu. Then wrapped them all and just ate them whatever. We were never cooks anyway.

What is the secret to amazing dumplings? 


And I love dumplings. I love dimsum, not only because of their variety, but maybe because you bite into one and then you can taste whatever secret insides juice out. Chives, chicken, shrimp, duck, tofu. There are fried dumplings, steamed, in soup, soup inside them, in noodles, the varieties are endless! And I love varieties, like korean banchan. I love picking around different dishes, different choices, even if takes forever for me to choose. 

From that one bite, you can grasp the flavor of the dumplings makes it more fun too! I don't know exactly why I started to love dumplings. My mom still thinks my sudden crave for dumplings is weird. 

To satiate our somewhat dissatisfaction/disappointment, we go back to our nostalgic snack. Cream BBang! It is an old school snack, which even my mom remembers. The cream has a slight citrusy flavor and a slight factory mass-production smell. The bread is soft, but not that soft. Just like I remembered. One bite is enough, but that leave you enough crave it a few years later. 

Grandma

Ah, I think around our age, our grandmas and grandpas are slowly getting old. I know we are all in the process of getting old, but they are slowly getting old to the point where you can actually feel it everyday, you can see it everyday, and it slowly materializes into this big blurry cloud which numbs your knuckles and bones and everything inside. Sometimes even makes your mind fuzzy! And from what I have been experiencing,  this is not a pleasant experience.

For my mother's mom, who had a light stroke a few years ago and is in a rehabilitation hospital, she visits our house once every month. So last week we visited a temple and stayed there for a day, as she is a devout buddhist. It is my second temple stay throughout this summer, as I visited with H a few weeks ago. Even though I am not buddhist, waking up to clear sounding of the monk's moktak is a somewhat enchanting experience. Not to mention the 108 bows... which you deeply bow up and down for 108 times, remembering your actions? sins in the world? Around the end your legs (at least my legs were) are shaking and beads of sweat drips from your thighs, arms, forehead.. And for the next few days, your legs wobble whenever you try to walk down the stairs. And the temple is all about going up and down stairs to enter the main sanctuary. 


Oh, but the temple food makes everything so much bearable. It is so simple, with just plain rice and a few side dishes, but maybe it is just the experience of eating in a quiet room where only people's spoons and chopsticks clicking can be heard, but every bite with kimchi, or some sort of greens stir fried with sesame oil, cold refreshing soups with seaweed.... you can feel what you're eating, at that moment. 

Every week, my mom also visits my grandma's hospital, with more sidedishes to share with the hospital food. It is often abalone porridge or pine nut porridge,  once she stir fried some mushrooms with onions, beef and garlic broiled in soy sauce... Now that I, the declared cook of the house, she comes to me to help her with ideas.
"Yoon Jeong, what should I take this week? I can't think of anything new.."
And my grandma used to be an amazing cook as well. I remember when I was young, visits to her house meant a full satisfied belly. I would giggle in joy to myself, "Good food coming!!"

So to satisfy my grandma, I looked up some recipes and we created:

This is eggplant stuffed with beef! Added chopped onions for more flavor. hehe. 

Stir fried beef (bulgogi! for those who know famous korean dishes) and stir fried mushrooms and onions. Simple, I know. 

This one of my favorite dishes! 찰밥. Its rice, but not just any normal rice. We add mung beans, dried dates, chestnuts, red beans.... So it is sweet, savory and salty and sticky rice! I love this rice. It is good eating with side dishes, but also just good enough on its own. 

And you see the crystallized burnt bits on the bottom. The ultimate chewy goodness!

The sticky rice dish is what my mom always makes for me before I leave Korea, which makes it more special. I remember last winter she made a huge pot full of this rice, and packed it nicely in a small Tupperware, but we realized we forgot to pack it with me to the airport... :( Almost cried that day, and I didn't cry when I was just saying bye to my mom...just kidding.

I am never going to forget that Tupperware again. First thing I am going to pack in my bag. FOR SURE. 

Back to grandmas. Honest reviews. The eggplant was a bit underseasoned, the rice wasn't as salty as she wanted, but she is still bragging about her temple stay to her roommates at the hospital :) Yay!

Home Dinner

Lo and behold! A rare day when Dad comes back home early. My sister and I take over cooking dinner, and let our parents take a nice walk outside. Woohoot! We decided on making a simple Korean dish, Kimchi Stew! 김치찌개.  

Even when planning a simple meal, so much preparation goes into it. Chopping green onions, washing the vegetables for our wraps....... cleaning and chopping mushrooms for a simple stir fry... 
The green onions were chopped and mixed in the mayo with crab meat, as toppings on fresh thickly cut cucumber slices! Simple appetizers. 

          

And washing and cleaning huge razor clams! 

 One was roasted in the mini oven with cheese, one just in its juice. But a bit over cooked... More experience needed. 

While adding kimchi, onions, garlic cloves to the stew, I wanted to try adding something creative and added....

Guess what those chunks are... sweet potatoes! My mom later tasted the soup and was like, why does this stew taste SWEET? Oops mom...it was just an experiment. You know, kimchi and sweet potatoes go so well together, like in kimchi sweet potato donkatsu (pork cutlet), you put them in together in 닭갈비 (spicy chicken..stir fry??), um........ yeah. 

 The wine which accompanied our meal, decanted. The second label from Chateau Chasse-Spleen, a wine that was described as Pegasus?? in the famous Japan wine cartoon, The Drops of God. The title sounds super cheesy, but it is super famous in Korean and Japan. It is rumored that once a wine appears in the cartoon, the prices skyrocket, its that influential. 

I was not too serious to take tasting notes, will do them next time. 

Dessert Truffles! Decadent end to our meal.

pizza party!

Wow. I have abandoned this blog for a long time, haven't I? It has been almost a year since my last post, and I have been procrastinating on recording my food and cooking adventures to a mere excuse that I do not have enough time, or I want to make my long-time-no-see post perfect.
But, I have at last(took me a long time, I admit) accepted the fact that, hell no! it does not have to be perfect! I will write unorganized scribbles and doodles and maybe just upload my pictures, it will be just worth it to have an archive where my memories and my thoughts will all be saved and for me to treasure later on. This moment never returns!

Now a lot has happened. I have decided on a law school path, the full package with taking the LSAT, getting over with it, brainstorming my personal statement, researching law schools. Now, under the excuse of I-must-inspire-myself-through-human-interaction, I have met old friends, new friends, basically talking and eating with a lot of people. And I hope, in that way, this break has been fruitful!

I have done bits and bits of cooking at home, mostly catered to my sister's taste (she is the most powerful eater in our house. the most powerful preference, the most powerful taste, you name it) so it has been cheesecake, stir-fried chicken(닭갈비) and a lot of seafood based dishes for my mom, and then a lot of fresh salads since its the summer, I like salads, my mom likes salads, and it is healthy!

Yesterday, my sister and I took upon a grand mission to make pizza at home. We once made it last summer.

HeHe. This time, it looks like this:

Okay, it looks kind of similar to last year's, to admit. But! It has improved! If you look carefully, I thought last year's dough was a bit undercooked (so it tasted a bit soggy) so this time I baked it longer in our oven. And, you see it is a customized pizza! My sister and I decided to go with our own toppings, half and half. She decided on the popular Korean toppings, potato, tomato sauce, black olives and shredded dried mozzarellaa cheese. Since I am the claimed  unique one, I modified the Deb's recipe from smittenkitchen and slapped on grilled eggplant, leftover smoked gouda cheese, edam cheese, roasted onions and green olives, roasted garlic gloves, parsley, and more cheese!

Sorry Sis. But anyway as you may observe from this picture, the bread is puffy! It has rose correctly and it was chewy and moist and just right! I do not have a lot of experience with making bread compared to cookies and cakes, so it was excited to see the bubbles in the dough when I was giving it rising time. Just like in the pictures !!! I was saying to myself. 

The weather is just smoldering nowadays. You take a shower, you busy yourself doing washing the dishes or moving the fan the way you want or rummaging for dessert after stuffing yourself with two huge pizza pieces which you have cut yourself and you are already drenched in sweat again. And if you know the my family, this only means more drinks. Just make it more refreshing. I am in charge of drinks as I am also always in charge of the food, so I mixed up a drink for my sister, also referring to the blackberry gin fiz from smittenkitchen (okay, it is my go-to blog). I blended mulberries and plum syrup, poured them in to a wine glass, stirred in soju and topped with tonic water and ice. Yum! My mom and I enjoyed our whiskey tonic. And of course finished off with leftover wine, which we always have. 

So for leftovers. We wish to have small stomachs, so we froze the leftovers, left a few slices out for my dad! (Just for you, dad). So this morning, heated them up for my dad with his daily smoothies (mulberries, tomatoes and yogurt, oh and the smoothies are not heated). 

Dad: I do not eat pizza for breakfast. 

Me: Puleaze? I made them just for you. 

(Dad eats a bite of the potato pizza)

Dad: There you go. 

Me: Daaaad you have to try my toppings too.

Dad: Okay, okay. 

He tries a bite of my side. 

Dad: Okay, I will take a piece of that one. Give another piece. 

YES SUCCESS!  I win the ultimate pizza battle (which the sole judge is my dad whom I nominated). 

Thank you, thank you for everyone's support I dedicate my honor to my loving family. 

reclaiming the kitchen

now i have been whining recently how i do not have the time to utilize my kitchen, to discover the nooks and crannies of the fridge and cupboards, not a chance, to become the once-again master of my house's kitchen. oh well. 

i have not have any problem discovering where the wine is though.

 

through helping out in the kitchen every chance i had this weekend and the lastlast week (oh memories of ultimate freedom! food at home breakfast, lunch and dinner! the joys i did not know was mine until it was brutally snatched away by the monster company named ACCENTURE) i now know where the little dishes and kimchis are, and this weekend realized with joy that all my baking equipments are exactly where they were (which also means nobody has been using the oven..... the only baking freak in the family)

so this weekend, under my sister's request(she has recently gone through a major (minor in my opinion, but ok she's still a baby) disappointment, a little babying for my baby sister) i set on to make oreo cheesecake!

my ingredients! mine!

cheesecake is so easy to make, yet so satisfactory despite it. i remember visiting my friend at the hospital due to a broken angle with freshly baked oreo cheesecake (her favorites are actually cream puffs but hey, cream puffs are hard to puff up). after fussing over her bandaged ankle and hearing the details of the breaking-ankle story, i opened my bag and gave her the little package containing my proud creation. the moment she opened it her mouth dropped open in surprise. i panicked.

was it murphy's law at work? did she had oreo cheesecake for breakfast? somebody had already gave her an enormous oreo cheesecake the day before? or....were she allergic to oreos?

fortunately, it was nothing of those. her expression was that of shock, since she had just mentioned to her friend on facebook (of course, facebook) that she had wanted.....oreo cheesecake. whew. so she devoured the piece in one stand, me watching with a contented smile only cooks and bakers know when people yummily eat their food.

so on my way for another smiley satisfaction, i started rummaging through the cupboards, i found two! unfinished packages of oreos (one oreo korean version), threw away the cream sandwiched between the black cookies, and coarsely crushed them.  whipped up some cream cheese and sugar, eggs which made a very watery mixture, and poured it into the cheesecake pan. left it in the oven for forty minutes, and popped the cheesecake out of its pan.



cant resist taking bits before pics. im just not that professional enough.



the surface was cracked and all but this time, it was creamy and thick, decadent new-york-style (not the soft light souffle style) that stays in your mouth, fills your mouth with cheese-cheese-and mmm cheese! due to the fact that i did not use low-fat cream ch eese (not easily to find in korea) and did not skimp on it. all the oreos goes in, and there you get, a cheesecake that a fork sinks slowly in (not gliding in, mind you. 

yum yum we all went for more.


of course, instead our friends' doggie who was visiting couldnt have a bite. cheesecake is apparently not healthy for little doggies. or maybe we just all wanted the extra bite.




hi doggie! among the pots and pans.

 

p.s. my sister is a weird thing. whenever she spots something unique, weird, good, expensive, fancy looking, something different she stores it away in her secret hiding place. previous examples have been coffee beans my dad brought back from indonesia (she secretly showed it to me hidden inside her old book boxes on top of her bookshelf), fleur de sel (this i confiscated), random chocolates from cousins, and and this yummy cheesecake was no different. she tucked it away in the back of her side of her fridge, chopped up into pretty slices. like we can't find that.

fishies fishies and more fishies!

how do you eat your fish? if you are american, the options you might have encountered might be: pan-seared, grilled, broiled, blackened (i first saw this version at miami, FL at Joe's Sea Crab. weird, it sounds like burnt to me), and you get a small portion of fish flesh on your plate cooked to your matter of choice, either buttered or with some creative sauce that often masks the true fish flavor. other popular options are sushi, a raw, thinly sliced fish flesh artfully placed on top a small oval shaped ball of sticky rice, or sashimi, which is literally raw fish. or, if you are from amherst, you might have seen the bland, dry chunks of something called fish served at our infamous Val.

do any of these look like real fish? they might smell super fishy and taste super fishy, but do they look like fish? now, if you come to korea(as i did a week ago) you order fish anywhere, and what you will get(not including sushi) will be a dish that actually looks like a fish with its head, tail, gills all vividly observable, complete with goggling fish eyes and fish eggs and intestines inside. now thats the ultimate wholesome fish-eating experience.

nobody sells fish chopped up. they sell it whole!

i believe this general style of eating fish in korea is so simple and yet economical both for the environment and for us. no fish going to waste! able to taste all different parts of the fish! and you can actually see for yourself what part of the fish you are eating. generally, the fish we eat this way are not that large, we're not talking about tunas twice the size of my arm sitting on the dinner table or hairtail(갈치 in korean, or cutlass tail, king-of-salmon according to naver dictionary, do they not eat this fish in the US? its very common in korea hm.... we usually chop this up and boil it with korean spices) but mostly moderately sized fish about the length of my hand: mackerel, yellow croaker (ok i dont think naver dictionary useful here:

selling fresh fish at nearby department store.

조기 for those who can understand), pomfret/butterfish (ok, 병어)..... i decline to explain more. come to korea people.

so the usual way is: you clean the fish, sprinkle it with simple salt (or sometimes a simple sauce concocted from soy sauce, ground red pepper, sesame seed, etc.) and pop it in the pre-heated mini oven. the fish roasts in its natural oil (the infamous fish oil) and comes out with crisp, crackly slightly golden skin ready to be devoured with our eager chopsticks.

todays morning fish. (:

other ways might be boiling the fish in a red bean paste spicy sauce with chopped potatoes, daikon and garlic. the sauce integrates into the smooth flesh and becomes moist and flavorful. yum.

a sad update is that i have been spending most of my time at my new internship and haven't the time to utilize and reclaim the ownership of our fully-equipped kitchen, nibbling away at cold burgers and limp fries trying to ignite an awkward conversation with new people. but the silver lining is that my mom takes pity on me and provides me with the most hearty, extravagant breakfast ever. for instance, yesterday i met with hot, steamy bowl of rice, mallow (아욱...) stew with huge shrimps, roasted mackerel, freshly steamed mini-squids, and other banchans. of course, before this i had already drank a full cup of blueberry, kiwi, tomato, banana smoothie and after this i had half a grapefruit. so i guess that makes up for the rest of my day.

i would have loved to include some pictures to share my experience, but i own a simple folder phone in korea (not fully equipped with a high-tech camera) and my camera is currently out of order after my brave attempt to shoot myself ziplining (i did it successfully with D's camera afterwards harharhar). will try to upload at least more lively photos later after my camera is fixed. to be continued...