'Tis the season for...beverages.

I've posted a lot about food, but I haven't really talked about drinks much on here. I've been on the search for specific things recently, so I might as well write about it.

Alcohol here is both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, soju is everywhere and it's pretty inexpensive. On the other hand, have fun finding something stronger than beer that isn't soju. There are fun flavors that are popular right now, but it's like flavored vodka - everyone defaults to the original.  I know stores where I can find vodka and Kahlua, but I have yet to find spiced rum. Maybe one day I will find Sailor Jerry on a shelf and do a happy dance in the middle of the store. One day.

Beer is...well, I don't care much for beer, so it probably says something for how tasteless it is that I can drink Korean beer without any problem whatsoever. In most places, you can find Japanese beers and possibly a couple American and German options alongside the Korean ones. Sometimes you'll even see Guinness, but that's much less common.

Cider is starting to pick up in popularity, albeit very slowly. I've seen Strongbow and Somersby's in a couple marts and convenience stores, but very few. I've been missing Angry Orchard like mad and thought it would a long time before I could have it again, but apparently Korea started importing it in August. I never would have known if a friend of a friend hadn't stumbled across it. My friend remembered the name because I've been constantly mentioning how much I miss it, so she immediately told me.

What did I do? I went out on an adventure with nothing but vague directions, high hopes, and a picture of the bottle my friend had received from her friends and passed on to me. (I drank it before leaving. I couldn't resist. Who cares if it's 2 p.m. here? It's midnight back in Ohio.)

I had two destinations in mind. The first was an import beer shop in Hongdae that I found on Naver, which is basically Korean Google. I didn't know if they would have what I wanted, but since it was waaaay closer than the other one, it was worth a shot.  The second was an unnamed craft beer/import beer shop somewhere in the French area of Seoul. I didn't even know there was a French area of Seoul.

The Hongdae shop was pretty easy to find, but it was tiny. Itty bitty. They had individual bottles for sale of various different beers, and I was surprised how many I actually recognized. They only had one cider, but it was the one I was looking for. Victory!

On to the mystery shop. The people who originally found the cider remembered the area of town the shop was in, but nothing beyond that. Luckily for me, it's not a huge area. I didn't even have to walk down the main street for very long before I caught sight of a sign for craft beer, and it turned out to have exactly what I was looking for. This was a combination bar/shop, and the shop area wasn't much bigger than the one in Hongdae. They also only sold by the bottle, but they had a lot more variety (and a lot more of each). Their Angry Orchard was slightly more expensive than the Hongdae shop, so I picked up a couple ciders that I haven't tried before instead.  I had no idea if it was good or not, but there was a deal where I got a free glass if I bought two bottles of it, so I figured I might as well.

So, all in all, it was a productive adventure!

(One of these days I'm going to remember to start taking pictures of everywhere I go so I don't have gigantic boring chunks of text on my blog. One day. Maybe. Possibly.)

More baking!

Yes, another post about food. There isn't a whole lot else to write about in winter. Besides, life is so much happier with an oven.  It really is.  I've already posted pictures of my scones, but I've made quite a few other things since that first batch.

 

Chocolate chip cookies~ They weren't perfect, but I think my brown sugar mixture was just a bit off. They were still quite good, and I'll be able to fix it for next time.

(Please ignore the derp cookie that's sitting front and center. That was the heel of the roll, so it was doomed from the start. The other side of it looked nice, though.)

These cookies were SO. MUCH. FREAKING. WORK. A coworker and I stayed up until 4am on a Thursday night and 2am the following night so we could make cookies for our students, who had to come in for Saturday classes on Valentine's Day. We thought it would be cute to make heart-shaped sugar cookies.  My coworker found a video and recipe for sugar cookies with shapes in the middle and sprinkles on the outside, so we decided to try to make them. It looked easy enough.

NO.

It was easy to do, but it took an eternity. Thursday night we made four rolls of what were basically slice-and-bake sugar cookies with sprinkles on the outside. Like I said, we were up until 4am...and we were finished mixing the dough at, like, 11pm. 

Eventually we gave up and put the remaining dough back in the fridge for Friday night, when we would do most of the baking. We decided to just roll out the rest of the dough and cut heart shapes out of it instead of trying to make fancy cookies with heart shapes in the middle. 

Grand cookie total: Three hundred. 

Yes. We made three hundred cookies for our students (and coworkers). No, I will not EVER do that again. Next time it'll be something that's less effort.

I grabbed mini loaf pans when I went shopping for the Valentine's Day cookies, so when Ingrid had some very ripe bananas and I found some bananas on special at Homeplus because they were starting to turn a bit brown, I knew it was time for banana bread.  It turned out really well, but I think I'm going to add a bit more cinnamon next time. The recipe called for half a teaspoon, but I think it needs more than that.

Next endeavor: pumpkin bread. I have a can of pumpkin sitting in my pantry, and it's the exact same brand I used back in the US.  It's gonna be awesome. 

Meanwhile, my apartment still smells like banana bread. Awesome.

Scone saga

I love baking. Baking is my favorite thing to do in the kitchen. Looove it.  Unfortunately, most Korean apartments and houses do not have ovens. This meant that even though I know how to make wonderfully delicious baked things, I was not able to.

Until now.

My parents decided to be awesome and get me a toaster oven for Christmas. A large one. My mother also included my pastry mixer and scraper along with some measuring spoons in my Christmas box, which made me feel much more at home in my kitchen. Since then, I have been on a search for all the necessary ingredients for scones. Baking soda and baking powder were a bit of an adventure, and buttermilk was all but impossible. White vinegar to add to milk for a buttermilk substitute was also a pain, but eventually Costco came to the rescue. Today the final piece came together: baking sheets.  The trip out to a supposed "baking street" was a bit frustrating at times, but eventually very rewarding.  I now know of multiple stores with baking supplies, from cookie cutters and loaf pans to melting chocolate and food coloring.  On the way back to the subway, I even ran across at least a dozen shops selling yarn - talk about a bonus!

Immediately upon returning home, I began my endeavor of making delicious little treats with (mostly) unfamiliar equipment.  Preparing the dough was reasonably easy, except for the part where my mixing bowl was too small so I spilled flour all over myself. I always spill flour on my shirt. Always. This time, however, it got on my shirt, pants, floor, and counter. Whoops.

Unfamiliar ovens are always scary. There is no way of knowing if you'll accidentally overcook or undercook your food because it could be finnicky. Also, Fahrenheit to Celsius is a problem. So is the fact that my oven's instruction manual was all in Korean. 

MY SCONELESSNESS IS FINALLY OVER!!!!

 

The only casualty of the evening was the oven mitt that came with my oven. All I did was try to grab the baking sheet that the scones were on, and this happened. Apparently this oven mitt was not designed to be used with hot things, which begs the question of what exactly it was designed to do. Look pretty hanging on a hook? Thanks, I'll get a functional one that does the same thing.  Luckily I had a clean hand towel, so I was able to use that to handle the baking sheet.

My scones ended up darker on the outside than I typically make them, but the inside was perfect. I'm really looking forward to learning more about this oven's nuances and trying some new things~

More food~

I love food. A lot.  Which is why the majority of these pictures are not of the food as pretty as it is when it comes out.  They're from the middle of the meal when I go "oh crap, I should have taken a picture of this to show people back home."  Food pictures and selfies do not come naturally to me.  Nor do hashtags. This is probably why my Instagram has practically nothing on it.  #failing

Anyway, food!

Spicy seafood soup with tofu. Don't know what it was called, but it tasted good even though I had to eat around the shellfish and little bits of octopus/squid tentacle in it.

Barbecue may or may not be my weakness. Pork belly, rice, and side dishes? Yes please.

 

Mix it up on occasion and go with beef...

I also went to a barbecue buffet - all you can grill and eat in an hour in a half, but don't leave leftovers or you get charged - and it was wonderful.  Didn't think to take pictures until the meal was pretty much over :(

Kimbap, a wonderful picnic food or snack.

 

부대찌개/budaejjigae, roughly translated as "army stew." So delicious.

  

닭갈비/chicken galbi, with added rice and 떡/ddeok

라볶이/rabokki, ramen plus 떡볶이/ddeokbokki (떡/ddeok in a special spicy sauce)

 

See all the red/orange in the last few pictures?  That's because a lot of Korean food is spicy and it's awesome. Spicy food for life.  (Though people who hate spicy food can definitely survive here - there are options for you.  I just usually don't choose them.)

This next one I made in my itty bitty kitchen using my new not-crappy, nonstick skillet~  Kitchen sink rice is my go-to meal.  What's in it?  Some kimchi, some veggies, some sausage...everything but the kitchen sink.  I really should start taking more pictures of my home-cooked meals to prove that yes, I can survive with one burner, no microwave, no oven, no toaster oven, a mini fridge, and no dishwasher.

 

I also made macaroni and cheese. It wasn't anything particularly delightful, but I used sliced American cheese and a couple slices of Gouda and it tasted almost exactly like I made it with Velveeta. It wasn't super-pretty, so no pictures of that one.  Same goes for my chicken and rice soup and my potato soup. The soups were pretty fantastic, but I'm not a food photographer so I couldn't capture the deliciousness of them. 

I can make Korean food too! This one is 된장찌개/bean paste stew, which I actually made for the first time back in the States. It tastes much better here, though. Also, the bowl of rice makes every single Korean soup I ever attempt taste better. Korean soups need rice with them. Fact of life. 

 

Caramel popcorn and vanilla soft-serve. Don't know why. Tasted pretty good, though.

 

Hehehe...back to barbecue. This restaurant has the best kimchi I've found anywhere...so far.

Strictly speaking this next one isn't food, it's tea. 오미자차/omijacha, 5-taste berry tea~ It has a bit of a strange taste, but I love it.  It's fantastic cold or hot and I need to get my hands on it so I can make it at home.

I've also finally branched out into delivery food.  There's an app - all in Korean - that lets me order without having to pick up the phone and call a restaurant. Score. I hate talking on the phone in any language. Text? Sure. Email? Sure. Skype? Sure! But phone? No thanks. I put off my hair appointments because it involves calling the salon on the phone.

So this is my first adventure into the life of "it's too cold to go out and I don't feel like washing the pot so I can cook":

It was actually really delicious. I ordered a preset pizza - I didn't pick my toppings - and got potato slices, bacon, corn, onion, and mushroom.  I picked the onion off for the most part, but I did eat some of it.

More food to come! (Eventually)

Best day in a while~

Not that I dislike my life here or anything. Life just always gets harder in the winter.

But this morning I went out to Itaewon in search of an English bookstore.  I got breakfast at a place with okay pancakes but wonderful blueberry topping and a cup of Earl Grey that was easily the best tea I've found in Korea.  The bookstore was great and I bought more books than I really need, especially considering how many I have left on my Kindle to read, but BOOKS. Then because there was extra time, my friend and I hit up this shop that she passed last time she was in the area.  It was a wonderful decision - I got a ton of baklava, and when I got home and tried it I just about cried because it was so delicious.  At work, one of the other classes had an open class today and one of the parents brought cake for all of us, so there was a random cake in the staff room. Very very tasty cake.  My box from my grandma arrived today with warm pajama pants and socks (I'm wearing some of them right now because they're waaaaarm), and I've been anticipating it for a while now.  Plus I bought flour yesterday, so I finally forced myself to make potato soup for dinner tonight. My first thought was why didn't I do this earlier. I love love love a good potato soup.  I guess it seemed like a lot of work...but I tend to keep most of the ingredients around anyway. I was out of bacon, too lazy to defrost the one box of sliced ham I have, and couldn't find cheddar cheese, but a slightly heavier hand with the spices gave the soup plenty of flavor and cheese slices work just fine if you chop them into strips first.  Plus I had part of a carrot left over from my chicken noodle soup the other night, so I threw that into the mix...and it is just too perfect of a fall/winter dish. It even has that touch of home.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to have another mug of tea, finish my chocolate and walnut baklava that has an absurd(ly delicious) amount of honey in it, and start reading one of my new books.

Food!

I want to apologize for the lack of food pictures.  I've been slacking.  It's mostly because I'm hungry whenever my food arrives in a restaurant and I start eating immediately. Korean food is delicious and I don't have time to wait to take a picture.

So, the guy who lived in my apartment before me wasn't the cleanest of dudes.  The apartment was cleaned by a cleaning service, but they didn't wash the dishes...or the sauce/spice bottles sitting on a little shelf above the stove.  Grease and grime everywhere.  Between work and meeting up with friends and/or coworkers outside of work, I haven't had a ton of time to clean the kitchen.  If it were just a normal amount of cleaning I'd have been done long before now, but I have to scrub. And scrub. And scrub.  He left food storage containers that were wonderfully sturdy and looked really nice...except they were dirty.  After scrubbing one for 10 minutes to no avail and realizing that the rest of them were the same, I just pitched them.  I'll get my own, thank you, and I'll keep them not-nasty.

Tonight, I finally finished washing all the dishes, utensils, the main cabinet above the sink, the spices/sauces, the itty bitty kettle, and the two pots (both tiny).  There's still a lot to do, but it's enough that I can start making my own food instead of going out to eat every night.  I have a brand-new rice cooker, but I still have to wash the bowl and muddle my way through the instructions.  The previous tenant left me a few food items in the cabinet (including ramyun, curry mix, chicken bouillon packs, and some coffee).  I also have a few basic groceries, like rice, potatoes, onions, hot peppers (and hot pepper powder), garlic, and a couple other small things.  I have to keep it small, because my fridge here is about the same size as my dorm fridge back at OSU and I only have the one cabinet.

I was planning on attempting to make 부대찌개 (army stew) tonight, but I had last-minute company and we sat chatting until about 11. At that point I didn't really want to bother with all the prep, so I decided to make one of the two packs of ramyun that the previous tenant left me.  I threw in some 떡 (ddeok - the best way to describe it is that it is ddeok.  It's a sticky rice cake and it is easily one of my favorite foods in the world) and have now officially made (and eaten) my first-ever home cooked meal in Korea.

Even if it was just ramyun.