More Christmas Photos

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Christmas

Being abroad for major holidays always brings on the homesickness, and this Christmas season has been no exception.  Luckily, we had family right here in Seoul to celebrate with, and a whole host of friends who joined in on the fun.

Christmas Day started with a tradition from Victoria's and Mandi's families: mimosas and Sausage Scrambled.  However, unable to find real sausage here (and unwilling to settle for the the glorified hot dogs Koreans call so-si-ji), Mandi modified the recipe, substituting in bacon, which -- let me tell you -- Korea does well.

(And, yes, apparently metal chopsticks are the best way cook bacon!)

After brunch we gathered around our Christmas Tree (OK, just a red and green houseplant) and opened gifts.

Thanks to Jan & Lou and Grandma Solomon for all the wonderful gifts, cards, and cookies!  (And  for the Heeeggggy's!)  And we, the Korean contingent of the Kaufmann family, participated in our annual book exchange, each of us receiving an excellent book fitting to our interests.

After presents it was time to start preparing food.  Lane and Mandi made delicious stuffed mushrooms:

Victoria and I spent all afternoon making homemade hummus and pita bread:

Carolyn came, bringing with her two dishes of...  well, we're still not sure what they were, but one was very red and the other was very purple!  (Really, Irene, purple potatoes?)

Other pals contributed other great dishes and some fabulous holiday beverages -- homemade eggnog and mulled wine -- that were so good that they disappeared before we could get photos.  We also had chocolate fondue, but -- alas -- we got no pictures of that either.

After dinner, we sang through every Christmas song we knew:

We may not have had quite all of the parts covered, as when the Kaufmanns do it, but Rosie, one of our guests, is a classically trained opera singer, so we didn't sound half bad, if I may say so myself.

When we had exhausted all of the Christmas songs, we just kept singing and playing, everything from Kermit the Frog's "Rainbow Connection" to "The Weight" by The Band.  Lane joined in on guitar and vocals for a few, as did Casey, allowing me to break out the mandolin.  All in all, we probably sang and played for about three hours straight!

For me, that's about the best way to spend Christmas -- a little tipsy on eggnog and wine, surrounded by friends and family, and with a guitar in my hands.

Best of all, late in the evening (and after a depressing foggy day in the mid-40s) it actually started snowing!

Merry Christmas!

[For more pictures, see Lane and Mandi's blog.}

The Hweh Club

Last night, Carolyn, Lane, Mandi, Victoria and I started a new tradition:  The Hweh Club.

Hweh (회) is the Korean word for raw fish.  (Actually, "회" is often given the romanized transliteration hoe, but we didn't want our club to be confused with any already existing clubs for garden tool afficianados.)  

The Hweh Club goal: to meet once a month at a local fish market to sample a different kind of seafood.  And what better a place to meet than the Noryangjin Seafood Market (노량진수산시장).

Located in central Seoul, the immense Noryangjin Seafood Market is one of the best places to find some of the world's tastiest and most bizarre-looking sea creatures.  

However, about 6 months ago we posted loads of creepy critter pictures from our trip to Busan and the Jagalchi Market, so I'm going to focus this entry more on our shopping and dining experience and less on things like undulating spoon worms that resemble uncircumcised phalluses.  (But if you're into that kind of thing - spoon worms, that is - click here for something awesome.)

First, we spent about an hour walking around the market, comparing prices.  It's a big place:

We didn't really know what we wanted, but we definitely wanted to try something other than the familiar tuna or salmon.  We ended up making our selection based on some very high-brow criteria: the little guy looked pretty cute in the tank and was reasonably priced.  

The fish we we finally settled on was a tomi (도미), which is "bream" in English (at least that's what The Google tells me).  Tomi weighed in at a meager but affordable 1.7 kilos, a little under 4 pounds:


Then we watched as Tomi, his tail still thrashing, was expertly filleted before our eyes:


Little Tomi's finer parts were nicely displayed on a bed of uncooked cellophane noodles and his unsightly remains were handed to us in a plastic bag, a gesture we thought - at the time - a little unnecessary.  But we accepted the bag with a pleasant smile, purchased 2 kilos of mussels to contribute to the meal, and headed down to the basement to the Sansu Restaurant.

Like most fish market restaurants in Korea, Sansu doesn't offer any seafood on their menu.  Really!  All they offer is side dishes and beverages.  But when you walk in, you simply hand them your purchase from upstairs, and they'll prepare whatever you bring, for a reasonable per-head fee.  

So, before we knew it, the waitress had hurried off with our mussels and the bag of fish remains, leaving us to dig in to our hweh.

Carolyn seemed just as eager to crack into that bottle of soju:

When the waitress returned, we were treated to some of the best - and certainly the freshest - seafood I've ever eaten.  The fish carcass had been stewed into a spicy soup called maeuntang (매운탕) which was absolutely fantastic, and the mussels had been steamed with onion, garlic, and greens.  Delicious!

A fabulous first outing for The Hweh Club.  Stay tuned for more!

Hikin' in a Winter Wonderland

Last weekend, Victoria and I took a lovely winter-weather hike with a few friends:

L to R: Eric, Carolyn, Rob, Me, Victoria, Jo, & Jenna

It comes in vending machines now?

And apparently it's for men, too!

Thanksgiving in Seoul

There is nothing like big fowl to cure all of life's woes.

Hung over? Have some fried chicken. Sick? Slurp up some chicken noodle soup. On a diet? Take turkey on wheat. Homesick? Find a turkey for Thanksgiving.

It was in this spirit that we celebrated turkey day last week. I've been a wee bit homesick, and our Thanksgiving cured it. We had eight guests who generously cushioned our main course with wine, appetizers and desserts (the most exotic of which was a sweet potato-coconut pudding, a la Carolyn). The food turned out wonderful, despite a cooking technique on the turkey that was a little on the nontraditional side.

It's not the first time we've had Thanksgiving in a foreign country.

Back in Kyrgyzstan, I got to pluck tail feathers. Let me tell you what, that is special. But our second year there, when we celebrated Thanksgiving at my friend Matt's house, he took it to a whole new level. When we arrived, he told us he couldn't wait to show us how delicious the turkeys looked. He led us around the to back of the house, and then out to his turkey pen. In the turkey pen were three fluffy turkeys strutting around and -- here's the clincher -- making eye contact with us. Well, let's just say it's not exactly what we were expecting, but they did taste amazing.

This year, I didn't see anything close to a live turkey. They don't have live turkeys in Korea. My turkey was raised, killed, frozen, and shipped in the U.S., and delivered to a Costco here in Seoul.

I only have a tiny oven, so after thawing our 17-pound bird, we had to take it to the market and try -- in broken Korean -- to tell the butcher what to do with it. The woman next to me at the shop thought it was a monstrous chicken. I have no idea what I ended up sputtering out, but the turkey was promptly buzz-sawed in half. One half ended up deboned, and the other ended up just barely fitting in my mini oven. Here we are (with our friend, Jo) gesturing wildly:The end result. Sitting sideways in the pan, the half-a-turkey looked a little surreal:

But it turned out great, aside from taking five hours to cook. It was a delicious meal, minus a little incident involving me, a drumstick, and the kitchen floor (hey, everyone insisted "ground" turkey was okay!)

The best part of this Thanksgiving is that Carolyn, Mandi and Lane were all here with us to celebrate.

The next day, Mandi, Carolyn, and I went on a girl hike (girl power, that is) in the rain and snow, and had a blast.