If you were to rate me on my Korean-ness, I would probably be a “2″ on a scale of 1-10 (with 10 being a church going Korean who has a perm and drives a Honda). I don’t speak Korean. I barely know any Korean customs. I am neither a doctor nor a lawyer – or an accountant for that matter (basically the three professions that every Korean parent pressures you to become). However, if you were to rate me on how much I love being Korean, I would rate my Korean pride at a “10″ which is basically: “I can’t fucking believe I come from the country that created kimchee and bulgogi!!!”
While Seattle has a diverse Asian population, most Koreans I know of live just north or just south of the city in the suburbs. Sadly, I can only think of one Korean restaurant that is worth eating at in Seattle proper – I personally think this is a travesty. The last time Paige and I tried someplace new, her bulgogi came out stir-fried with broccoli and carrots! This is enough to make a Korean grandmother roll in her grave.
So last Saturday, Rene, Scott and I went on a field trip north specifically to eat good Korean food and to visit HMart, a Korean grocery and variety store. We first met up with our friend Jeff and his cutie pie daughter Emma at a restaurant called Ho Soon Yi. I don’t know why we do this but every time we eat together we end up ordering so much food that it is completely ridiculous and embarassing. Stuff like Bulgogi, jap chae, seafood pancake (hae-mool pah-jun) and soon dubu barreled out of the kitchen in gigantic portions. Seriously, I could have just made a meal out of the banchan and rice, but nooooo, we had to order the family meal for what seemed like 20. The waitress actually had to pull up another table to accomodate all the food we ordered. They probably looked at us and were thinking, “oh they must be taking a day off from the freedom fries.”
After lunch, we took our engorged bellies to HMart to get our shop on. I had never been to HMart and now I can’t wait to go back. I generally can’t shop the first time I go someplace new like this because I am so overwhelmed by the choices. When you go to a store and you see 20 different varieties of rice – well, it gets kind of exciting for this old girl (What already? I shop at Safeway and I have no life) and I can’t make a decision to save my life.
Since then, I have had a couple of listless nights dreaming of their kimchee deli. They had so many varieties that it was like taking a walk through my childhood. And of course, one of my favorite things was in the food court. While there were a bevy of Korean food options that looked really wonderful, I just couldn’t get over the kaiten sushi cafeteria deli:
Last night I went to see Mark Bittman speak about his new book called Food Matters: A Guide To Conscious Eating. If you have never heard of Mr. Bittman, he is a James Beard Award winning author and has written a litany of books like How to Cook Everything, How to Cook Everything Vegetarian and The Minimalist Cooks at Home. He also is a columnist and blogger for the New York Times, as well the star of a companion new media show called The Minimalist. I know all this because I am crushing on Mr. Bittman. (He’s probably a fuddy duddy of a man who has an acerbic personality, but I’ll live in my fantasy for now.)
Mr. Bittman wants to help save the world. Or rather, he wants to save YOU and I. The world will still be here if the human race dies out. You can see a version of his lecture here:
I don’t like to preach or get all up on the high horse, but it is humbling to hear the statistics behind the general concept about food/diet that we all know already:
American’s eat like shit.
We definitely eat too much meat.
Meat production produces 1/5 of the world’s greenhouse gases.
Greenhouse gases causes global warming.
Global warming can have catastrophic affects.
The conundrum is is that I like to eat meat.
But I also like the planet.
And I care about my kid and your kid too.
So what do we do?
What do you do when you start thinking about this stuff?
So it’s midday on day 3 of the New Year and I am already nursing my 2nd hangover. The past few days have been bourbon fueled and filled with buffet tables. Even though I wanted to start my weight loss regime at the beginning of the year, I quickly realized that notion was futile.
On New Year’s Eve, a friend and I drove to Tacoma to ring in the New Year with Teresa (a.k.a “CB”) and John. It was lots of drinking and noshing on things that I don’t eat very often – like dairy and cheese. And of course there was bourbon. And wine. And staying up till 5:00 am. And the subsequent greasy spoon breakfast to sooth my tender insides. It took me a whole day and a half to recover from New Year’s Eve. Even worse off was the friend that I drove down with. She ended up getting up in the middle of breakfast at a restaurant so she could lay down in the car. On the drive home she had her eyes closed and was concentrating on not puking (which I did appreciate this given that we were in my car).
Then last night I went to CooperLord’s (a.k.a QB) house for a dinner party with all of my favorite former-coworkers/friends in the world. It was a mini-reunion of sorts and it was lovely to see everyone together around the same dinner table laughing and carrying on.
Cooper roasted up a gigantic alien-sized turkey which they got for $9. For some reason, we all found this very humorous and made our share of jokes about what it means to buy a turkey that is on clearance. I guess this is what happens when you put a bunch of “smart goody goody” people together – we talk politics, books, current events and then make jokes about tag-sale turkeys and subprime loans. We wax poetic about the cheese plate and gush over the charcuterie. And then we start talking shit about reality tv on Bravo. It’s borderline nerdy sounding, I know, and I don’t care.
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