Tteokbokki for the aspiring Korean cook

All right. For those of you who were asking if I ever cook Korean food for my husband, why, yes...yes I do.  I try to be sensitive to the fact that although he has lived in the States for almost 5 years now, he still really misses home and (as he claims) the superior food that Korea offers. So, as a good little wife, I am trying to embrace the culture and cook food he loves. Here is a break down of how I cook Tteokbokki, which is how Kyoung Hee likes it. There are several different ways to do it and it all just depends on the tastes of the ones who will be eating it. For those of you who have never had tteokbokki, Tteokbokki is a delicious Korean snack food that is usually eaten from street vendors or at train stations. It is a spicy rice/fish cake concoction that is really very good, once you get used to the super spiciness. This is how I make it. You will need a deep skillet pan to cook. Take 10-15 minutes to cook. 

First....cut one onion into slices

Add one spoonful of tashida(Korean) this can be found in Korean markets. It is basically like All-spice. It just adds flavor.

Add one spoonful of minced garlic to the skillet and mix with onions and tashida. 

Add two handfuls of round rice cakes 

Add 2-3 handfuls of fish cakes--These can be fish cake balls or fish cake strips, it doesn't matter

It should look like this. Then turn the stove on med-high and begin the boiling process

My husband likes to add soy sauce and 2 spoonfuls of sugar but this is not required. He just likes it that way.  No exact measurement on the soy sauce. I just go around in two circles pouring the soy sauce into the pan. 

This is the important part. You will need Gochujang for this step. It is hot pepper paste and you can get it from the Korean/Asian market.

Looks wonky I know. Put 1-2 spoonfuls into the boiling mixture. Stir until completely dissolved. Let simmer over low heat until the rice cakes are all squishy. 

Should look something like this at the end. Happy eating! 

  

I'll bruiser you!

So last night my husband and I were watching this Korean show called Superstar K. During one of the acts a man was "popping", which is a style of dancing much like the robot, only cooler. He is suddenly spray painted from behind in purples and blues and reds that looks like he is bleeding and hurt. Go Korean interpretive dance! It's all in Korean, so I only understand maybe like 12% of what is being said. I turn to my husband and ask what it all meant. Kyoung Hee said the song was about saying goodbye to your love at an airport and how the hurt of the separation bruisers him. "Bruisers?" I repeated. "Yes, he was bruisered." K replied. "You mean bruised right?" I said. "Oh....right. Bruiser is someone from WWE fighting.....so the word is bruised?" K tried to brush it off all cool....I was laughing. It is so adorable when K makes everyday words cute. It's hard to correct him.   However...looking at the pictures makes me think Bruisering someone might be more painful.....
                                                           

this is Bruiser

This is a bruise

Communication Barrier

Sometimes my relationship with my husband makes me want to slam my head into the nearest wall. The fact that he and I speak different languages and have had to create our own common language might have something to do with it. But sometimes the barrier doesn't have anything to do with words, it is the cultural differences. Especially when it comes to food. Last night at about 11:30 we are settled in for the night and he turns to me and says "I want a soda." Being the only one with a license, this means that I would have to get up and go drive to the nearest store to purchase said soda. I am one of those people, who could probably be labeled a grandmother, that does not like to go out past a certain time at night unless it was already agreed upon beforehand(like a party or something) K is the opposite and is a complete night owl. He doesn't see anything wrong with just picking up and going to do something at midnight. In Korea he would do that all the time, he says. Needless to say sometimes love is working past the barriers in a relationship and putting the other person first. Which is to say that K totally had to wait for his soda until the next day. ;) 

Julie, Julia & Kimchi?

I have decided to start a bit of a cooking/blogging project. Once a week I will cook some Korean dish and post about it on my blog. Hopefully this will lead to my progression and betterment in cooking Korean food. We shall see. First up is Korean Spicy Pork with rice and Kimchi. Jae Yook Bok Geun is the Korean name for it. (Any native Koreans out there, please forgive my Romanized spelling!)

New Year's Resolutions

I try to stay away from New Year's resolutions, mainly because if I make a point to say my resolutions out loud or jot them down, the less likely they are to happen. Not quite sure why this is, but I am certain that I am not the only person. However, 2013 is set to be a busy, life changing year; therefore, I feel like the resolutions I put down are more likely to actually happen. 2013 is the decided year of continent hopping. By the end of this year everything will need to be in place to move to Korea. Which makes the list of resolutions a bit long this January. Usually I just have 2 or 3 resolutions.  So here they are:

• apply for a Korean Visa
• apply for a job in Seoul
• become functionally proficient in Korean
• effectively pack and ship necessary things to Korea. 
• find new homes for Calcifer and Pippa (this one makes me super sad.) 
• save enough money for this epic move
• read 50 books during the course of this year
• lose 20 pounds (gotta lose the the squishy tummy!) 
• Get K and I both checked at the doctor, dentist and eye doctor before we leave
• learn how to back stitch. 
• spend more time with family members this year. 
• get my husband and I in better health! 
• BLOG! 

So there you have it. An ambitious list, to be sure. Stay tuned and I will attempt at keeping this blog updated more frequently as the year progresses. 

Last Christmas speaking English?

I cannot believe that it is December, yet again! It is seriously true that the older one gets, the more quickly time progresses. Getting old.......

Well, I believe it has been almost six month since my last update. This fall has been full of life changes, both good and bad. I started my first career job this past August teaching ESL in high school. I was in a very strange, very frustrating play. K and I had huge marriage problems we had to work out. Needless to say, K and I are still in the infant stage of our marriage, being still under the 2 year mark. We had a serious trial to go through in August and September, but it really caused us to become closer. We realized how much we wanted to make our marriage work and we were almost feral in protecting it. Counseling and God have been huge help factors. Let me just say to all the married people or soon to be married people out there. COMMUNICATION! Never underestimate it or take it for granted. It is most likely the single most important thing a marriage can have to make it succeed. Use it.

With the new year approaching and K and I turned 27 and 24 respectively, we are looking to this next year to be one of huge change for us both. This year is the year that I must fill out Visa forms. We have to register our marriage in Korea. We have to acquire employment overseas, sell a lot of our stuff, find a way to get our cats to Korea, travel around the US and then permanently move to the Republic of Korea by next December.  It will certainly be by next December, if not sooner depending on K's graduation date. I sure would love to hear from those of you who have had to break the news to your parents that you were moving within the year, no ifs, ors, or buts. How did you do it??? I might be eating KFC from a bucket next Christmas downing exorbitant amounts of soju and pretending that I understand everything my in-laws are saying to me. This could very well be my last Christmas speaking English. say whaaaat?

Kimchi woes

So a small insight into my cultural marriage as of late. This afternoon my husband asked me if I would cut some fresh kimchi for him and put it in the fridge. I groaned and looked across the room at him in disdain. "You do it." I griped. "I HATE cutting kimchi! It stains my hands and makes me smell." He looks over in surprise and frustration and says...and I quote, " You are my wife. You are going to be cutting kimchi for the rest of your life." That effectively shut down my argument. Hello Kimchi. Welcome to the rest of my life...apparently.  

You may call me Master Kim

So I graduated today. For the second time. It meant more this time because it felt more final. Last time I jumped straight from undergrad into grad school. This time real life is waiting for me. I have a job teaching ESL at a local high school and I couldn't be more excited. I have so many plans for the future year that I can't wait to get started! It was really great to have all my family down in Cleveland today as well. I loved being able to celebrate getting my Master's degree with them. I wouldn't have made it this far without them, that is for sure. I think that the best part about all of this is that I love being in a stage of transition, especially the days right before the big change. I love the anticipation and anxiety. Moving on and going to the next step thrills me. Also having a steady income and work schedule thrills me as well. haha.

I am going to love having a bit more time on my hands. Korean study is going to be taking more of a focus in my life now that I actually have time for it. I actually used some of my Korean today in Target. It was really random and fun. I was there with my family and we had just sat down in the Starbucks. A cute little Asian mom with her two young children went past us and sat down two tables away. I could hear them speaking and recognized their language as Korean and I thought they were adorable. My dad encouraged me to go over to them and talk to them in Korean but I was really unsure because it seemed super awkward to do that. Well, my dad wasn't going to leave until I spoke to them so I waited until they were about to leave and I smiled at the little girl as she went past. I waved my hand and whispered, Annyeong!, which means goodbye in Korean. They stopped and talked to me, surprised that I spoke and understood Korean. I was glad my dad kinda forced me to do that. I think the biggest reward was the little girl and boy saying back to me as they left, Unnie, Annyeong! "Unnie" is the Korean equivalent of "big sister". I loved it. It definitely revitalized the motivation for learning Korean as quickly as possible! (^^)

Besides learning Korean and teaching ESL, I am starting to investigate different Ph.D programs in the States as well as in Korea. I know that I want to take 1-2 years off of school to gain experience in the classroom, but eventually I want to go back to grad school to get a doctorate in TESOL or Linguistics. If there was one thing that my Master's program taught me, it was that I want to be a Lifelong Learner. I never want to stop, either as a student or a teacher. The ability to constantly learn is something that fascinates and inspires me to make the most out of my life to help impact my student's lives. Anyways, the roundabout thesis of this long overdue blog post was that you will be hearing a lot more from me now. Expect more thoughts and ideas and daily happenings! 

This is for real. This is Life.

Last Friday I mailed off step 1 out of an undetermined number of steps involved with moving to another country.  This is real. This is happening. I mailed my passport renewal application. I have a telephone interview with a Korean recruiting office sometime in the next two weeks. K and I have started downsizing our stuff and making arrangements for my car and our big furniture. I am having to consciously make it effort not to commit to things beyond next December. I am tying up loose ends, trying to get a few trips with close friends in before I leave. K and I are wanting to travel the country a bit before we leave. I almost feel as though I have a terminal illness and I have to see as many loved ones before I leave as I can. Of course, I understand that there are things such as Skype, but beyond that, once I leave I don't really know when I will be seeing them again. It is definitely a strange detached feeling.

This is a charged topic that I most certainly do not like discussing with my parents. I have a deadline for telling my grandparents...another duty I am not looking forward to carrying out. My mom is probably the hardest one to talk about it with. I do not like making her sad, but it is hard to see a way around it. I wish I could make her see that this is what I want to do with my life. I love it; I'm happy.  I am sooo excited about it. I feel like I've always been meant to move to another country and have adventures. Of course there is also sadness involved. I don't like how she thinks I've made this decision easily and am happy about leaving her. This was probably the hardest decision I've ever made. I am leaving my childhood home, my family, my friends, not to mention my language and social customs behind...permanently. Whoever thinks I hopped skipped and danced to this decision with a smile on my face is crazy.

Life is about change. Whether you are ready for it or not. Life is Change. I feel like in America, people enjoy "stagnant". They want to put roots down and never go outside of what is comfortable for them. And going beyond that, they look down on or shake their hand in a condescending fashion if anyone they know wants more than that for their life. I have never wanted to live in the same city I was born or grew up in my entire life. I don't want to die in the same hospital I was born in. Oh, I am sure I could live just fine in Knoxville Tennessee for the rest of my life and never go beyond that. But I would always regret it and I would never flourish like I see myself doing somewhere else. I would never be challenged to the extent I am about to challenge myself. I mean, god....learning another language and living in that culture! I love language but Korean is no walk in the park. Learning and becoming fluent in Korean is going on the top of my list of challenges of my life.

It hurts my heart to be leaving my life behind, but I feel like I am going into a new life. One that will be just as  fulfilling and exhilarating as this one. I still have 10 months left before we have planned to leave. It has always been my hope for this blog that it would eventually serve as a sort of bridge between my life in Korea and the people I love that remain in America. I hope that you continue to read this blog throughout this coming year and once we are in Korea. I am already expecting many mishaps and adventures and laughs. And they will all go up on here. :) 

Welcome the year of the Dragon

Last Monday was the beginning of the Lunar New Year. The Year of the Dragon...bit of a big deal. It is my year and as such should be a good year for me. It will definitely be a year of huge life changes. My husband and I are 99.9% positive that we will be moving to Korea permanently in a little less than a year. He graduates from Lee in December and then off we go! So on top of trying to finish my Master's degree and teach a lovely group of high schoolers, I will be applying for a new passport, a visa, an actual job, and beginning to pack up and sort through my life. Phew! I'm already tired, just thinking about it. I have to figure the logistics for getting our two cats to Korea, as well as all of our stuff (much will be given away). If anyone has gone through this before, I welcome any and all advice!

I am also well into my last semester of student teaching. Much more is required of me this semester and I blanch at thinking of everything that I have to do in so short a period. I love my classes though. My first block is amazing, as is my fourth and most of my third block. There are a few students that I would love to just pummel and if there weren't laws that stopped me, it might have happened already. They probably need a good pummeling too. I'll just leave that up to Life.