A food story from my sister, who is teaching English in Korea this year. While reading this, you'll feel your tastebuds burning with heat. And you will laugh, too.
Dear Christine,
When we went to Gyeongju, on holiday, we ate at a restaurant that was something of a shack. The woman that owned it was rambunctious; she ordered us all in (we might have been one of her only customers for the night). We sat down, we tried to order, but she told us what she was making. She told us it would be hot, and she wasn't exaggerating on that one: IT WAS THE HOTTEST FOOD THAT I'VE EVER EATEN!
It was a red noodle dish. The sides were interesting: slightly pickled cabbage and sausage, and old, old kimchi - which can be normal - the older the kimchi, some believe, the better. We drank makgeli, a fermented rice wine, which is normally good, but this might have been old; we felt ourselves grow increasingly drunk on both the spice and the wine. My mouth was on fire, Kristin looked like she might pass out, Anthony was trying to play tough guy, and somehow Todd and John ate the whole bowl of unidentifiable hot stuff.
The owner kept coming over to us and laughing that we thought it was too hot. She told me to eat faster, to eat it all. We kept asking for water, and she kept laughing, but obliging our wishes. She asked us if we minded the television, we said "no." John asked if she had music since there was a boom box on the table behind us. She turned on Trott Music, Korean music with incredible precision, and she danced. We all danced and clapped our hands. I danced with her, she laughed her laugh.
When we were leaving I told her it was very good, but too spicy, and she told me if I thought that it was good that I would have eaten it. (Anthony translated for me). The next morning I felt terrible.
That was the most severe and strange of our eating experiences.
Love from Korea,
Teresa
Showing posts with label Travel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Travel. Show all posts
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Monday, September 17, 2007
Campin' Out
Camping can have a varied food effect.
For example, above is the effect mid-hike after reaching a scenic view, pausing for some PB&J, trail mix, and power bars ... and fruit, and cheese and crackers. And cookies. Campers become napping turtle-people, sunning on a large rock.
Trish had orchestrated a rather impressive camping adventure of 11 people, with both a Philly and a NYC group convening in the wilds of just-outside-of-NYC in Harriman Park.
This event created a food challenge. Camp food forces the cook to reach a new state of simplicity. Every ingredient, method of preparation and cooking utensil must be considered ahead of time. This is hard for me. I enjoy complicated and spontaneous cooking - experimenting for large groups of people with new recipes that have multiple stages of preparation and if possible, hard to find and somewhat mysterious ingredients. Food is flung around the kitchen in a fluster, and everything comes flying out of the cupboard in a time-sensitive search for the springform pan. This is the fun of cooking - doing it in a slight disaster area. Camp cooking, however, needs an uncluttered frame of mind. A strategic approach, if you will.
A good s'more, for instance, requires perfect timing. This is very important or you end up with a nicely toasted marshmallow sandwiched between grahams with a chunk of hard, cold chocolate. We did a fair amount of s'more trial and error on this trip. On the second night, we got it. The bottom layer of graham and chocolate must be warmed and ready to go at the same time that the marshmallow has been toasted to bulging, internally gooey perfection. If you are like Erin and myself, you just want a s'more right away and will do almost anything to get it. You will hover excitedly with marshmallow-on-stick, waiting for the fire to start. But we all became willing to time each element right and eat bare marshmallows in the desperate intervals. The s'more instructions are below.
As far as the actual sustenance, we go beyond s'mores. (Though, I admit nothing is truly beyond the S'more). I don't know where the thought "big pot of chili" came from. I had a sudden vision of warm, big bowls of ... stuff... being eaten by chilled, but happy people circled 'round the campfire. Working my way backwards from that vision, I came up with a way to do camp chili. I think we got it on the first go-round. All it really took was a giant pot, several ziploc freezer bags of diced onions and peppers, crushed tomatoes, beans and rice, and a baggie of various herbs and spices. And, uh, reaching into the cooler for a beer every now and then to add some more liquid to the pot when necessary.
I think people were happy with the outcome.
Now, it is true this was not the kind of meal you could prepare on a true roughin' it type of trip. My camp food skills have not yet evolved to there. We had a grate on the fire, could lug the big pot in our car and bags of ingredients in the cooler. But the meal totally worked for a large group of friends who drove out of the big city for a weekend in the cool and pretty, late-summer woods.
The Best S'more
Marshmallows (lots)
Graham crackers (lots)
Chocolate (lots)
1) Put on headlamp. Find s'more sticks.
2) Make assembly line of all ingredients.
3) Put bottom graham cracker/s and chocolate in pan over fire (not too close) to gradually warm.
4) Begin toasting marshmallow a minute or so later.
5) Get bottom layer of graham and chocolate from pan, place marshmallow on top, and add top layer of graham.
6) Eat best s'more ever.
7) Make another one. Use headlamp to check for inevitable chocolate on face, arms, lap.
Camp Chili
4 cans of beans, multiple varieties (e.g. black, kidney, garbanzo, white)
3 can of crushed tomatoes and their juices
1/2 a bag of rice
1 green bell pepper, diced
1 sweet onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 sack of mysterious spices (e.g. chili powder, thyme, basil, oregano, crushed red pepper, salt, pepper)
4-6 cans of beer
1) Put all ingredients in separate ziploc freezer bags (bag of diced vegetables, bag of tomato, bag of beans, etc
2) Pack all camping gear
3) Arrive at campsite and build fire with friends
4) Get out big (giant) pot with lid
5) Saute onions, peppers, and garlic
6) Add 1/2 of spice sack and saute a few minutes more
7) Add tomatoes, rice, the rest of spice sack and 1-2 cans of beer. Put lid on pot and cook, stirring occasionally until rice is done. Add more beer when necessary.When
8) When rice is done, add beans and additional beer as necessary. Cook until beans are hot and add additional seasoning as desired.
9) Scoop into mess kits, add cheese and crumbled chips.
For example, above is the effect mid-hike after reaching a scenic view, pausing for some PB&J, trail mix, and power bars ... and fruit, and cheese and crackers. And cookies. Campers become napping turtle-people, sunning on a large rock.
Trish had orchestrated a rather impressive camping adventure of 11 people, with both a Philly and a NYC group convening in the wilds of just-outside-of-NYC in Harriman Park.
This event created a food challenge. Camp food forces the cook to reach a new state of simplicity. Every ingredient, method of preparation and cooking utensil must be considered ahead of time. This is hard for me. I enjoy complicated and spontaneous cooking - experimenting for large groups of people with new recipes that have multiple stages of preparation and if possible, hard to find and somewhat mysterious ingredients. Food is flung around the kitchen in a fluster, and everything comes flying out of the cupboard in a time-sensitive search for the springform pan. This is the fun of cooking - doing it in a slight disaster area. Camp cooking, however, needs an uncluttered frame of mind. A strategic approach, if you will.
A good s'more, for instance, requires perfect timing. This is very important or you end up with a nicely toasted marshmallow sandwiched between grahams with a chunk of hard, cold chocolate. We did a fair amount of s'more trial and error on this trip. On the second night, we got it. The bottom layer of graham and chocolate must be warmed and ready to go at the same time that the marshmallow has been toasted to bulging, internally gooey perfection. If you are like Erin and myself, you just want a s'more right away and will do almost anything to get it. You will hover excitedly with marshmallow-on-stick, waiting for the fire to start. But we all became willing to time each element right and eat bare marshmallows in the desperate intervals. The s'more instructions are below.
As far as the actual sustenance, we go beyond s'mores. (Though, I admit nothing is truly beyond the S'more). I don't know where the thought "big pot of chili" came from. I had a sudden vision of warm, big bowls of ... stuff... being eaten by chilled, but happy people circled 'round the campfire. Working my way backwards from that vision, I came up with a way to do camp chili. I think we got it on the first go-round. All it really took was a giant pot, several ziploc freezer bags of diced onions and peppers, crushed tomatoes, beans and rice, and a baggie of various herbs and spices. And, uh, reaching into the cooler for a beer every now and then to add some more liquid to the pot when necessary.
I think people were happy with the outcome.
Now, it is true this was not the kind of meal you could prepare on a true roughin' it type of trip. My camp food skills have not yet evolved to there. We had a grate on the fire, could lug the big pot in our car and bags of ingredients in the cooler. But the meal totally worked for a large group of friends who drove out of the big city for a weekend in the cool and pretty, late-summer woods.
The Best S'more
Marshmallows (lots)
Graham crackers (lots)
Chocolate (lots)
1) Put on headlamp. Find s'more sticks.
2) Make assembly line of all ingredients.
3) Put bottom graham cracker/s and chocolate in pan over fire (not too close) to gradually warm.
4) Begin toasting marshmallow a minute or so later.
5) Get bottom layer of graham and chocolate from pan, place marshmallow on top, and add top layer of graham.
6) Eat best s'more ever.
7) Make another one. Use headlamp to check for inevitable chocolate on face, arms, lap.
Camp Chili
4 cans of beans, multiple varieties (e.g. black, kidney, garbanzo, white)
3 can of crushed tomatoes and their juices
1/2 a bag of rice
1 green bell pepper, diced
1 sweet onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 sack of mysterious spices (e.g. chili powder, thyme, basil, oregano, crushed red pepper, salt, pepper)
4-6 cans of beer
1) Put all ingredients in separate ziploc freezer bags (bag of diced vegetables, bag of tomato, bag of beans, etc
2) Pack all camping gear
3) Arrive at campsite and build fire with friends
4) Get out big (giant) pot with lid
5) Saute onions, peppers, and garlic
6) Add 1/2 of spice sack and saute a few minutes more
7) Add tomatoes, rice, the rest of spice sack and 1-2 cans of beer. Put lid on pot and cook, stirring occasionally until rice is done. Add more beer when necessary.When
8) When rice is done, add beans and additional beer as necessary. Cook until beans are hot and add additional seasoning as desired.
9) Scoop into mess kits, add cheese and crumbled chips.
Tuesday, July 3, 2007
We ate Acapulco: Food and Politics
Vacation in Mexico with the van Fleet brothers - what more could a girl ask for? Margaritas, sun, good food and company. Simple. Except the travel books that Ryan and I had doggedly studied all had disclaimers for Acapulco, concluding that, "She's a diva past her prime". In the fifties Acapulco tourism was defined by its small hotels built on the cliffs overlooking the bay, Pacific landscape and the city. Then the new, huge all-inclusive resorts on the beach came in.
The brothers and I spent a timeshare week at the Grand Mayan, one of these mega-complexes and lived like pseudo Mayan royalty, tanning and sipping the daily fruity cocktail by the pool. This was by day. By night, we left resort-land, making a good effort to find our food experiences by asking taxi drivers and the resort staff for recommendations. The travel books could not be trusted, because they generally led us to the turistico and "international" places we were trying to avoid.
First, travel with us outside the resort, beyond the "largest golf course in Mexico" and "biggest pool in the world." Looming ahead is a mammoth Super Wal-Mart and a bit further down the road mixed in with the Acapulcan madness is a McDonald's, KFC, and Starbucks. You have to wonder what places like Acapulco would look like if at least in the food realm they were left to evolve independent of middle-America eating and buying.
But, this is as far as I'll go with the editorializing on tourism and local economies and will let the food and politics speak for itself.
La Lomita and La Tejamil: When we told our cab driver we wanted to go to La Lomita, he told us he'd wait for us in the taxi while we ate. Cabs didn't pass by these restaurants outside the boundary of Acapulco tourism. In fact, we drove several miles down roads in very poor neighborhoods - the sturdiest structure for miles had been the ubiquitous Coca-Cola factory, standing prisonous with armed guards in front. La Lomita was completely deserted at eight in the evening. They weren't serving food. Next door, La Tejamil looked the same, but they were open. The brightly painted pavilion was emtpy but for us, crickets chirping outside, neighborhood dogs barking, and crazy game shows on the TV. What we later learned, after some deliciously strong margaritas, salty queso fundido, fresh guacamole, "little birds" and fish tacos and was that los jueves and los domingos are the days and nights to go to both places for lively music and lots of food and people. We never did make it back for los jueves, so to us it remains a food mystery unsolved, and we are left to imagine how fantastic it must be.
La Tortuga: By far the best place where we ate, and in fact we went twice. It's nicely tucked away into a hillside away from all the hustle and bustle. It's a space in which you don't know exactly where it begins and ends - there are no walls but one, and tables strewn about on the bi-level patio under fauna and outdoor ceiling fans. It's a quiet and happy place. Our server was very kind and attentive and remembered us the second time we came. We shared combination platters with tostadas, enchiladas, chiles rellenos, guacamole, and frijoles. The sopa de tortilla was a meal on it's own, chiles just over the brim of comfortably spicy, cooled off with slices of avocado and melted cheese. Then out came the helado coco (coconut ice cream) with toasted coconute flakes and drizzled with a coffee liqueur. Sigh. We also had this marvelous liqueur in our coffee. This was the closest we came to food heaven the entire week.
La Perla/La Quebrada: On a day of sightseeing around the city, our cab driver took us to La Quebrada, the cliffs where for over fifty years divers have jumped from daring heights into treacherous sea water. And this is good entertainment, so we watched from a hotel restaurant built into the cliffs, drinking cervezas and eating tacos with a bird's eye view of the spectacle. It was food with a view.
It's true that the diva is well past her prime, but she can create an amazing food effect.
La Tortuga Restaurante-Bar
Avenida Lomas Del Mar 5
Acapulco, MX 39690, GRO
Since 1960
Tel. 52-744-4-84-69-85
Sunday, July 1, 2007
Liz's June Wedding
Midway through June was cousin Liz's wedding in Cleveland. The twenty-something cousins had already predicted who would be married first within our bunch, and Liz was not the first we had guessed. But at times the best thing about families is the "who knows?" unpredictability. The extended family converged for the affair, starting the Thursday before with a food party for the soon-to-be newlyweds. All guests brought a dish and recipe to share = tables of food. We met a lot of new people through their food. Groom Jason's grandma was my favorite - the way she simply, yet exquisitely described a two-ingredient sloppy joe and waldorf salad made me wish she had a cooking show I could watch every day.
So food is the great social integrator at weddings.
At the food party, my sister and I ran a smoothie station and blended a few original fruity creations. Teresa capitalized on her smoothie-making skills gained during her famous college-years stint at the Orange Julius in the mall. Especially popular at the party was the Magic Mojito (and it was good even without the rum!)- all recipes can be found below.
The Sunday after the wedding, Liz and Jason were already on their cruise ship ready to sail out into the Caribbean and our family was playing croquet and prepping for an after-party and Father's Day picnic in Auntie MJ's and Uncle Don's backyard.
Family picnics are great casual affairs where lounging, eating and talking are the primary activities. We got stuffed on Italian sausages in toasted rolls that were topped with roasted red peppers, onions and spicy mustard. Auntie MB's rosemary potato salad had me swooning under the fragrance, and we grilled some corn smothered in chili-lime butter for twenty people, all on a little hibatchi.
Following were some s'mores and Liz's homemade birthday cake for Teresa and Anthony. The bride even took time to bake her cousin a birthday cake - amazing. It was a fluffy white cake with a mysterious lump of chocolate in the middle - delicious! Still full, though wanting more family fun and food, Dad took me to the airport so I could get back to NYC in time to catch my flight to Mexico, thus setting us up for the next food episode.
Sister Smoothies*
Magic Mango & Mint Mojito
1/2 can of Limeade concentrate
1 cup of Seltzer
1 sliced Mango
1-2 sprigs of Fresh Mint
1 1/2 cup Ice
Blend!
Love Monkey
1 1/2 cups of Chocolate Soymilk
2 sliced Bananas
1-2 teaspoons of Honey
1 cup of Ice
Blend!
Smooth Sailin'
1/2 cup of Sliced Strawberries
1/2 cup of Sliced Pineapple
1 1/2 cups of Orange Juice
1-2 teaspoons of Honey
1 1/2 cups of Ice
Blend!
*Adjust proportions of ingrediants to your liking.*
*Rum can be added to any of these if you need to feel extra smooth.*
Grilled Corn with Chili-Lime Butter
If done right, this corn will take you to new heights in flavor. The trick is to do an initial smother of the mixture, grill it, then spread on some more with an extra squeeze of fresh lime juice.
Fresh corn (husked)
1-2 Sticks of butter
1-2 Limes
Chili Powder
Directions:
1. Soften butter in microwave. In bowl with butter, squeeze in the juice of one lime. Sprinkle in chili powder to your taste. Blend.
2. Spread on corn ears. Grill and turn until golden brown.
3. Spread another layer of chili-lime butter on corn and squeeze on a little more fresh lime juice.
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