garden greens a-go-go

the garden is now churning out a steady supply of greens (including 4 types of lettuce, crown daisy, kale and herbs) and it's just about more salad than frederik and i can handle. we've already started gifting bags of it.








anyway, i know that I'M enjoying the heck out of pounding a humongous bowl of salad every day, tossed up w/ fresh dressings laced with plenty of garlic, ginger, lemon thyme, dijon mustard, dill, basil, balsamic vinegar, etc, etc. oh yeah!

also, our baby spinach seeds had become full grown plants in 5 weeks, so we harvested it all last weekend. the little spinach patch made a brimming sink-load full! we decided, since we are already up to our ears in greens, it would be best to freeze the spinach for later use (read spinach dip and spinach-ricotta gnocchi). however, after the tedious process of rinsing, de-stemming and then blanching, the final product to enter the freezer was pretty meager .... but oh so precious. green gold! :)

buddha's birthday

may 21st happens to be buddha's bday, which also happens to be a korean national holiday, which ALSO falls on a friday this year. hooray for 3-day weekends!

anyway, i wanted to post a few pics (out of a gazillion) that i took of the lotus lantern parade, in celebration of buddha. they love their lanterns and they really go all out!

i love you and buddha too :)

if i were ever to write a song about religion, it would probably go something like this. :)


you like my farmer hat? ;)
peace. love. rainbows.

garden of eatin' (featuring dotorimuk)

from my experience thus far, the food at the community garden is the bomb ... and they are nice enough to make the veggie pancakes for me without all the tentacles (octopus) that you'd usually find up in it.

last weekend they had something different on the menu, and they insisted that we try it. dotorimuk salad. ok, salad is good & generally safe for a vegetarian.. but what is dotorimuk? the lady assured me that there was no meat involved, so we said, "sure!"

when it was brought out to the table, i realized that it was something i had eaten several times. ...but never served up as nicely as this!

dotorimuk -- i now know -- is "acorn jelly" in english.




according to wikipedia, it was widely eaten in korea during the korean war, when millions of people were displaced and starving. it consequently became associated with poverty, and most people who could afford to would eat other jellies instead (such as buckwheat). however, in recent years it has been rediscovered as a health food (acorns are a good source of protein). hmm.

well, it was a nice addition to the wonderful salad (especially washed down w/ some makgeoli) but, personally, i'm not too crazy about it on its own.

new uke tunes

i've been slacking on the uke for a while, so i printed some tabs for a few new songs. and, just in case somebody out there gets some amusement from of these posts, i recorded me playing them. and as much as i like to say, "don't hate; it's all about the process," the truth is that i'll probably never get any better at these songs before i lose interest & learn some new ones. haha. nevertheless, i'm happy to make music of some kind, at least. oh mang, since when did i become so shameless? (be sure to turn the volume down on each of them ;)

#1. extraordinary machine (fiona apple).
this song is a bit unique for the uke but i dig it and it's a fun one to learn.
(and yessi, it reminds me of you :) ... sorry for butchering but i couldn't help it)

#2. ain't no reason (by brett dennen)
love this song and, if you don't know it already, please go get it. luv his stuff.

#3. beach in hawaii (ziggy marley)
just cuz i'm missing hawaii like the dickens.

the new garden!

one of most attractive reasons for me staying in seoul for a second year was my community garden plot. HOWEVER, one day early last month, i found out (with enormous despair) that my community garden was being turned into a high-rise apt building. [!!!]

alas, with a little effort, i found another garden (YAY!).. and it's actually a bit better than the last one! it's pretty much the same distance from my house (30min bike ride) but now i just bike the opposite way along the lovely yangjae stream. perfect!

this community garden (daewon farm) is uber organized... on opening day (last weekend), they handed out gloves, hand-hoes, a tray of lettuce seedlings and a few other types of seeds. they also have a PA system (which i think they use just to make announcements about the 2 foreigners, ha).


...and, perhaps the BEST thing about this place, is that they have a little restaurant on site where they serve up noodle soup, savory veggie pancakes and plenty of makgeoli. and the people couldn't be any friendlier. happy joy & rainbows.


i was so stoked when i found my own personalized little plot. my friend, frederik, went in halves w/ me, though, so we updated the sign. :)



thus far, we've planted 4 types of lettuce (seedlings) and then some spinach, radish, crown daisy (they make nice chop suey greens), basil and mint. this coming weekend we're gonna plant some beets, cilantro, spring onions, peppers, and anything else we can make room for.

growing food gets me excited. the garden pics will be greener next time, i promise. :)

happy earth day!

of course, it should be everyday... but today's it's official. a day to embrace the wonders of our world and to remind ourselves to do our part in taking care of this magical home we were born into.

in my kindergarten class... earth day provided the perfect opportunity to take my usual rants (about how cool nature is &/or how ignorant people can be) to the limit. and, believe it or not, these 6-year-olds would much rather hear about where their food comes from & where there trash ends up (for example) than about adjectives and verb tenses.

so i spiced up my kiddie lecture w/ some earth day word puzzles, etc. but the best part of the day was getting to introduce them to THE LORAX, by dr. seuss. it's absolutely the best earth day story evah. dr. suess totally backed me up. here's a clip (enjoy!!):