harvest; tuber time

it's been mighty nippy outside these days. well, it's actually been o.k. this past week... you know, mild autumn weather.. a nice sweater and a thin jacket.. maybe a scarf. but there were a couple of days that were just FREEZING. and i thought i was gonna die. anyway, we decided we should head out to the garden one last time to harvest what was left; what survived the freeze anyway.
daylight is growing shorter w/ each day, so we had to book it to the garden on our bikes straight after school. we knew that we'd only have a couple of hours, at most, before dark. when we got there, it was a bit sad. it was obvious that the gardening season was over. folks were harvesting their cabbage to make enough kimchi to last god knows how long and they wouldn't be planting anything else. our little garden was barely hanging on. all of the basil was dead; wet, brown drooping leaves. we were just a couple of days late. so we started uprooting all the tubers (beets, radishes and carrots) and harvesting huge piles of herbs and greens. getting it all home on our bikes was a bit of a challenge but we made it.
so then i had all that stuff to deal w/. just washing it all took forever. now i have enough greens to have huge, amazing salads for dinner this week. as for the other stuff, i found some good recipes for daikon radish and beets and i set aside one whole evening for that magic. the outcome was daikon kimchi, do chua (vietnamese pickled vegetables) and, my new favorite, daikon cakes. YUM. as for the other stuff, the herbs are drying & i'm gonna make some herbed radish butter and i'll roast some of the beets (but i mostly like them fresh on salads). damn, having a garden has been good. :)

kimchi, jimjilbong & soju (a rambling update)

food!

one of the most interesting and fun things about foreign countries and their culture is the food, right? so i'm still in my first week in korea, and i've only just begun to dabble in this category. i eat lunch w/ the kids every day at school, which is always exciting to see what will be inside the black box every day.....one day fish, one day pork, one day octopus, one day crab....always w/ a variation of kimchi and some other spicy, pickled and colorful mystery vegetables...and always with a side of rice and soup (usually a miso soup w/ seaweed or onions). i do plan to maintain a vegetarian diet here, which i hear will be difficult, but i'm pretty sure i can survive....i love kimchi and all of the interesting vegetables and spicy-sweet sauces.

i've gone out to eat only twice so far...the first time to a burrito place, dos tacos (and boy, am i excited that i can get a good burrito in this city!), followed by dessert at one of the gazillion coffee/tea parlours around town. the dessert (pictured) was also pretty amazing....a warm gooey brownie w/ haagen dazs ice cream, whipped cream, chocolate syrup and truffles (YUM). tonight i met up w/ my friend, smilja, for dinner at a great korean bbq joint. there's a grill at the table where you can cook up some fresh meat and garlic and there is a self serve bar of all kinds of goodies: lettuce leaves, green onion strips, kimchi, sprouts, sliced garlic, and yummy sauces. i helped myself to lots of salad, kimchi and roasted garlic and i also ordered a noodle soup (pictured) which is served cold. it was really tasty. it was a very social atmosphere, especially w/ a few beers. ;)

more food to be featured in the future, no doubt. =)