mary eats

Jang jo rim is one of my all time favorite Korean side dishes. Delicate quails eggs simmered alond with brisket and green chili peppers in a pungent soy broth. Lazily, I would simply buy them in the refrigerated section from the grocery store or from the banchan ajuma in the market. But now, here in Western Washington I’m outta luck. “Oh, no, no, no.” The lady maning the deli at Pal-do wor-du replies when I ask her if he has any (she does sell ddok boggie though, for 5 FREEKIN BUCKS. Ouch!). So I am left to figure it out on my own. Pulling from all the resourses I have, my korean kitchen (who got a shout out on the xanga site the other day), my poorly written Korean published cookbooks, and my American publsihed Korean cookbook I had a rough idea of what to do.

But sometimes a rough idea isn’t enough. Especially if a cuisine is unfamilar. Ok so I don’t have that excuse, but Korean cooking techniques are still a little unclear to me. Once I replaced tofu for beef in ddok guk (rice cake soup) and was greeted with cheers of “Ohhhh, Fusion Style,” when I related the success to my coworker. Korean cuisine still appears to have a set of procedure standards that must be met for a dish to be called by its name.

And here is where the sad story starts. I bought brisket, a half pound, I cut it into smaller pieces, soaked it in water,

boiled it with pepper and green onions to make the broth,

then simmered it in a half cup of soy sauce, 5 Tablespoons of sugar and 2 cups of beef broth,

but my brisket came out too chewy, almost like one of those all rubber superballs. Seriously I could’ve chucked the thing against the floor and it would have ricocheted around the kitchen for a good half an hour. You are a liar, Mrs. Korean Cooking Made Easy. This recipe was not easy at all and the complete lack of depth from your recipe is laughable. For example, I am told to boil the quaild eggs for 4 minutes. WHAT DOES THAT MEAN? Do I put the eggs in cold water (as you would when making regular hard boiled eggs), bring it to a boil, turn off the heat and let it stand for 4 minutes, or do I bring a pot of water to a boil then add the quails eggs and let them boil for 4 minutes! HELP.

(Just a quick side note. If any of you out there are considering writing a cookbook please read theRecipe Writer’s Handbook before you start. Your readers will thank you for it. I am seriously considering writing these Korean publishers and offering my services FOR FREE, to edit these cookbooks for more concise instructions!)

So I am prepared to try again. Instead of brisket I have purchased a lovely half pound of flank steak which I plan to simmer in a quarter cup of soysauce, 2 cups of beef both and 5 Tablespoons of sugar for 1 hour. Then I will add a couple tablespoons honey, sliced ginger, cooked quails eggs, and peppers.

A mere few months ago I would have been able to take my jang jorim to class and ask my co-teachers what I did wrong, but now my only hope is my Grandmother’s friend Ms. Chang, and you. What do you think? Any suggestions?

Week four has been a week of firsts, my first math test, my first time as sous chef, and my first culinary test. If it’s a reflection for what’s to come, I’d say I’m in a good spot. Most of my classmates are too. I’m so impressed by their dedication and how seriously they take their tasks. Personally, I think we have the bravo TV show Top Chef to thank for this. Strangely, each one acts as though we feel like we might be told to “pack our knives and go,” if we slip up. The competition right now is at a good pace. Mostly everyone is trying to compete against themselves, rather than each other. Without a Marcel in the class it’s hard to hate anyone just yet.

Now that the pace has picked up we are starting to get heftier assignments. Our first is a spice assignment, where we have to describe the look, aroma, and taste of 36 different spices. Not wanting to taste the contaminated samples in class (I thank my sanitation teacher for that. She’s big on pointing out diseases spread by lack of hand washing and barehanded contact with ready to eat foods), I stopped by PCC to buy a small amount each in bulk, and now with 30 odd little baggies spread across my coffee table I feel a little like a coke dealer, or that could be the potent aroma of all the spices going to my head. As long as I just remember to simply smell them, not cut them into lines and snort them…

My knife skills are still shaky and slow. We were taught to tuck our fingers under so that the knife falls against our knuckles. And while this instrument of sharpened steel glides down my bare flesh, I’m to keep my middle three fingers on top of the item I’m cutting while my thumb and pinky precariously hold the sides. HA!. Honestly, I really do start off trying, but it just isn’t comfortable, my hand starts to cramp up in this unfamiliar position, so I eventually resort back to my old ways until I hear or spot Chef G. Then, faster that you can say chopped off finger tip, I have my knuckles back up there by my knife, and my cuts go from consistent to uniformly challenged

Student lunch, on the other hand, has gotten increasingly better. Every day that Kevin picks me up from school (yes, I have a personal chauffer) I take delight in watching his facial expression turn to jealously when I describe the eight or ten gourmet choices put on the hot line.
“Mmm. Today I had Wiener Schnitzel.”
“Really? Is that actually a food, I thought it was a joke. What is it?”
“Oh, its delicious. It’s pounded veal cutlet, breaded, then baked and topped with anchovies, lemon, and minced hard boiled eggs. Oh, and I had a slice of apple cake too, and some braised red cabbage, and the best part was the Mexican hot chocolate. Mmmm. It was amazing, rich and chocolately with hints of cinnamon and spices. Dang it was good. So…whatd’ch have for lunch?”
“Nothing.”

Finally, after being home for almost a month, THE box from Korea has arrived. Lagging well behind the boxes of media rate shipped books, and duffels of summer clothes, the box I had been waiting for appeared at my doorstep.

Battered, with a tear down one edge, I pulled it in from the snowy step. With care I cut through the rounds of packing tape, and opened the box like a Christmas present, slowly and curiously lifting the bubble wrapped orb from its container.

Peeling away layer after layer of bubble wrap the red container began to take shape. I unwrapped faster, visions of rawboggie, dak galbi and other spicy treats dancing in my head, until I finally came to it, 3.2 kilograms, 6 and a half pounds of pure gochu paste.

I picked up this baby right before leaving Korea, at E-Mart, for 9,000 won. Here, in the Seattle area Asian supermarkets it retails for at least US 18.

Yes, after spending mindless hours watching Paula Dean burn her biscuits, Sandra Lee fixing up frozen pies from her line of artery clogging, saturated fat filled, pie crusts, and Rachael Ray’s side talking evoo, my malaise has been broken and I can begin to cook again. While I’ve enjoyed my sojourn with my South African culinary finds (see my previous posts) I am excited to roll up my sleeves and get elbow deep into my beloved gochu jang.

Oh I got a jjigae pot too!

I wonder if my classmates will mind me sweating kimchi out through my pores?

Culinary diary
Week three

Tuition: $1100
Uniforms $200
Knives and equipment $250
Books $210

Taking time off from the outside world to be a student again? Priceless.

Ok, I’ll spare you the master card spoof. Actually it should read like

Tuition: $1100
Uniforms $200
Knives and equipment $250
Books $210

Realizing that your comfy jet setting lifestyle is coming to a grinding halt and the only time your passport will see the light of day is on a trip to Canada? Or that you’ll no longer be ordering out of the Anthropology catalogue but the Chef’s Wear catalogue? Heartbreaking.

I am starting culinary school as a 28-year-old married adult. Yeah, it’s a little late. I’m a little long in the tooth compared to my fresh out of high school, or college freshman classmates. Thankfully I’m not the oldest, and I’m not the least experienced, but returning to the kitchen after professionally critiquing it for three years is an about face.

Unable to roll up our sleeves and get our hands dirty until passing the county’s food handlers exam, my first week as budding young chef was spent in lecture, listening to Chef G drill in the importance of uniform standards and professionalism, drilling in the fact than none of us are going to be on the Food Network, and drilling in the fact that chefs and cooks are a weird subculture of folks who work when regular 9-5ers have time off. “Forget holidays, man.” He almost chuckled as he paced across the lecture room, soundlessly in black wooden clogs and chalk-stripe black chef’s pants. “You can’t be in it for the money.” He challenged us.

This is, of course, his way of weeding out the passionless. But it doesn’t work on my class. Week three, all but two show up, crisp in chefs whites, lip rings removed, beards trimmed, died black hair or afros tucked under white skull caps, donning ill flattering hounds tooth checked pants and black leather clogs or workman’s boots. Even the boy who sags his cargo pants past mid thigh, showing off a colorful assortment of plaid boxer shorts, has been inspired to keep his chefs pants at mid ass.

As first quarter students rotating daily assignments are designed to aid us learning our way around the school’s kitchen. From washing pot to being our (first quarter) kitchen’s sous chef, by the end of the quarter we’ll have the basic skills to get a job in prep, or bussing

Snow and ice have closed school once so far and delayed the start a few days.
After a week bussing tables in the fine dining student restaurant. I am now in the kitchen.

This morning I sliced radishes, trimmed broccoli, and prepared concassee. I hate concassee. Perhaps the hardest part about going to culinary school is retraining yourself to slice, prep, and cook the way your chef wants you to, or as he would say “properly.” Tomato concasaee is one of those retraining exercises. Boiling the tomato, adding the tomato to an ice bath, peeling the tomato, de-seeding the tomato, taking out the core of the tomato, julienne the tomato, dicing the tomato, julienne the core, dicing the core. COME ON! So my way leaves the skin on, so what. But concassee, man, that takes way longer than necessary, and for what? SOUP! I’d give it to you for a garnish, a sauce, but a soup, where the already pithy winter tomato is going to further breakdown amongst black beans into an unrecognizable mush. No. No more concassee.

It’s taken me a while to get back into my culinary swing. It is cold here, there’s snow all around, and while I had hopes of a fully stocked kitchen with a gleaming six burner gas range and shiny stainless steel accessories, I find myself, yet again working with the minimal: a toaster over, a single burner, and a microwave. No oven.

Things are improving. We have an espresso machine, but using more than one appliance at once causes a power outage in the kitchen. Ok, so it isn’t my dream kitchen, and you won’t find it in the pages of Architectural Digest, but the view of Lake Sammamish is the trade off.

Photo by Erin Wigger.

Rusks, for dipping in your morning coffee, South African style.

Nonetheless, I’ve been inspired by my South African haul. In my suitcase I schlepped back jars of Moroccan harissa paste, dukkah, Cadbury chocolates, rusks and dodging custom bullets, dried meats and sausage. The bounty, sequestered to a far corner of the cupboard cried out the evening I made a roasted parsnip soup.

Begging for a kick, we spooned thick tomato and cumin ladden harissa paste into the soup. Rich macadamia nuts, plump raisins, and that earthy and hypnotic combination of dried coriander and cumin elevated the lowly newspaper recipe to winter staple.

Later, for a trip to the movies, we topped microwave popcorn with tamari, and dukkah. Dukkah is traditionally, well you can almost read it in the photograph, but I’ll tell you anyway, a blend of dried coriander, cumin, sesame seeds, sugar, salt, and ground almonds and hazelnuts. Your can use it as a dip, in accompaniment with olive oil, for crudites or bread. Here is a dukkah recipe if you can’t get your hands on a jar.

Finally, while hosting a reception for a smashing NY Times photographer (alright, the reception was just me and Kevin), we topped a log of Trader Joe’s goat cheese with a piquant Orange, Ginger, and Maple chutney.

It was decadently delicious.

This is perhaps the easiest entertaining trick I know. Chutney, an spicy Indian relish, a fresh condiment chalk full of chilies, ginger, and mint, has undergone a culinary makeover. Now shi-shi food shops like Whole Foods in the States, and Woolworths in South Africa, push fruit blends (Apple is a popular chutney in the PNW) in well designed packaging. You can save a bit by wandering down to your local Indian market and picking up a jar of mango chutney.

I still have a jar of mango atchar to put to use. Any ideas?

It is 2007, readers, and I have a confession. I am no longer in Korea.

Our holiday in South Africa kicked off our return to Seattle, and at this very moment I am sitting in a fuzzy white robe, toes covered by fuzzy white slippers, watching the Today show, drinking Starbucks’ Christmas blend with raw turbanado sugar and a luxurious splash of organic half and half in an oversized novelty coffee mug.

It feels good to be back.

My first few days weren’t so smooth. Seattle’s infamous rainy weather combined the loneliness of the suburbs had me crying for my cozy Itaewon apartment, colorful friends, and the crowded Seoul subways. Kev pleaded with me, “Please, just give it a week.”

When I first started this blog, back in April of this year, I mentioned that I would be attending culinary school. And now I am. With my first week under my belt and hundreds spent on knives, uniforms, and books I feel confident that it was the right choice. Though the reality is I won’t be returning to Korea anytime soon.

I never imagined that this little blog would serve as the resource it has. I get emails from folks asking about restaurants in Seoul, Korean foods, ingredients, and general questions about living in the land of the morning clam. As much as I like to believe it is my gripping prose, dazzling creativity, and stunning photographs that keep you all coming back, I am happy and flattered to help answer these basic questions. And frankly, glad that all this information I have collected over the years has value.

The hardest part of leaving Korea was worrying what would become of Mary Eats. Would I just let it die? Should I continue to write about Korean food in America? Should I focus on restaurants in Seattle?

These questions have been plaguing me like a credit collectors’ call. Paralyzing me from posting anything new, revealing my status, or even reading other food blogs I usually browse over Saturday mornings. After one too many glasses of red wine I poured over Zen Kimchi’s page, tears welling up in my eyes (thankfully the daily kimchi and Seoul life were on holiday), convinced I had made the wrong choice.

But, after pulling it together here’s the plan. Mary Eats will continue to blog about Korean foods, Korean ingredients and Korean restaurants in America. I’ll start posting more Korean recipes and culinary finds once a week. I am lucky that the suburb I live in is quite international; including a run down QFC (supermarket) recently turned into Worl-du Mar-tu full of Hangeul signage and Korean ingredients.

Life as a culinary student will also find its way on the blog, as this is now my full time job. No joke. I spend about three hours on my homework every night. My students in Korea will no doubt feel justified by this karma.

I also resolve to wear SPF 15 everyday and to start skiing.

And that’s it friends. If I lose some of you to geographical location, or waning interest in stateside life, I’ll understand, but for those of you who stick around, I promise it won’t get boring.

Best wishes for an amazing new year.

Mary