SuzySushi

Ah, the sword of Damocles hanging over the bunny's neck... And we left hanging in suspense...

Sheetz -- Those curry puffs look delicious! I admire you for starting from scratch with your own puff pastry. (Yeah, yeah, I know it isn't hard to do -- just time-consuming; that's why I use Pepperidge Farm.)

Years ago, I took a one-day seminar at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. Ate lunch in the cafeteria where one of the choices --and of course my pick -- was roast Cornish hen with wild rice stuffing! Geez. My schools never served cafeteria food like that!

Don't eat the bunny. Your son would never forgive you. Do you have a yard where the bunny can run around (or its cage be brought outdoors for a change of scene)? Rabbits can be housetrained. (Not sure if they can be trained not to chew on cords.) And they are a little smarter than most people think. They need activity or they get bored. We never ate a pet, but we had parakeets when growing up. My mother once tried serving us some small roasted birds. Quail, maybe? My sister and I looked at the platter and ran horrified from the table. Those birds were the size of and reminded us of what our parakeet would look like without his feathers! P.S. I eat quail nowadays, but still can't look at one without remembering this incident.

Enurmi -- looks like you're absolutely correct. A bit more Googling revealed this link which reports that Campbell's indeed is using Solo brand "low sodium sea salt" (the same brand markk saw at the trade show), which is manufactured by the UK-based firm The Low Sodium Sea Salt Company. The product is "a sodium-reduced, magnesium enriched sea salt containing sodium, potassium and magnesium." Solo's website claims that "sea water has a relative mineral composition almost identical with that of the blood," but does not reveal how the salt is produced. However, a competing product, LifeSalt, a lower sodium sea salt from Iceland, claims to be "derived from the purest sea water which is drawn from a reservoir one mile underground. An environmentally friendly harvesting process utilizing geyser steam replaces 60% of the sodium content with magnesium and potassium that occurs naturally in the sea water." Its website further states, "The sea water is drawn from a subterraneous pool of boiling sea water and geothermal steam is used to evaporate the sea water resulting in a one of a kind sea salt." Maybe someone here who knows more about chemistry can explain the process!

While we're on the subject of bread machines, for those who have one, homemade bagels! I made my first batch of homemade bagels last week and wonder what took me so long to get around to them! Easier than pie, and much cheaper and tastier than storebought bagels. I just threw all the ingredients in the bread machine, let it knead and rise on "dough" setting, took out the dough -- which was smooth, warm, and easy to work with -- shaped it into balls, flattened the bagels a little, poked a hole in each center, boiled them 1 minute, then transferred them to a baking sheet to bake for about 30 minutes.

Along with pappadum and tortillas, I'd add homemade wonton/gyoza wrappers to the list of items that are not worth the fuss of making at home -- at least here in Hawaii, where even ordinary supermarkets have a selection of items for little cost. I could never make them as evenly thin as the machine-made products. Same for Vietnamese rice papers.

3 more for me: Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian cookbook, The Complete Vietnamese Cookbook by Ghillie Basan, (a promotional book from Hermes House), and The Folk Art of Japanese Country Cooking by Gaku Homma (an older book someone recommended in another eGullet thread).

Apparently, it's a lower sodium sea salt made using a process of evaporation and condensation. Campbell's has an exclusive agreement with the salt manufacturer. Here's a link to an article in a trade newsletter: http://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/news/ng.a...-reduction-soup

Thank you for sharing your wonderful week with us, O Domestic Goddess! I bow before your hearth. Seriously, it was great to see both familiar and unfamiliar foods, get a peek into what life is like in contemporary suburban Korea, and delight in your family photos.

I only had after-school snacks in grade school. In high school, I got home so late that it was almost time for dinner (my family ate dinner at 5:30!). My after-school snack was usually cookies and a glass of milk, or a scoop of ice cream in warmer weather. I remember visiting a Chinese friend and being surprised that her mother didn't serve us something sweet after school. I don't remember exactly what we ate there, but it surely must've been some kind of dim sum! My daughter (now age 10) has an after-school snack every day, usually a glass of milk + about 15 grams of "other" carbohydrates -- a 100 calorie snack pack of cookies or crackers, Cheerios, a piece of fruit, a waffle, a smoothie that combines the milk and fruit, or whatever else she craves that particular day. If she's especially hungry, she'll add an ounce of cheese to her snack.

What a thought-provoking thread -- and post. I don't have any answers to your questions, but Rinsewind, you are not alone! In my case, I didn't marry until I was 41. During my single years, I cooked for myself on most days (save for occasional lunches or dinners out, occasional take-out when I felt lazy, or Stouffer's frozen mac & cheese), making exactly what I wanted and experimenting liberally. If I couldn't down the number of servings in a recipe, I made the whole thing and froze the leftovers for future meals. (My sister, also single, handles this a different way, eating the leftovers every day until they're finished!) Since getting married, I find myself more often than not preparing the foods my husband likes to eat. In general, we're both "foodies" and especially adore Asian foods. But he won't touch chicken thighs, so I never cook them (except when roasting a whole chicken, and then I'm the one who eats both thighs). He suddenly decided that he doesn't like salmon, so a whole package of salmon fillets is just sitting in the freezer. Our pasta is usually spaghetti with a tomato-based sauce, because he doesn't really like short shapes or cream sauces. OTOH, he loves sausage (which I didn't grow up eating and can take or leave), so that shows up with some frequency in our meals. And much to my surprise, thanks to him, I recently learned that I actually like green peppers--raw or barely cooked--which I always thought I abhored. Like you, "I make stuff that I don't like fairly often because I know he likes it. I rarely make something that I like but he doesn't." I think that all humans--except for sociopaths--have an innate desire to please others because we are "rewarded" by the others liking us. In our society, however, it's more inculcated into women.

Stunning photos of lunch and a crystal clear explanation of how to make empanadas. It's just after breakfast here and I'm salivating! (Nice to see a photo of you, too!) I'm curious: throughout the blog, I've seen very few signs or labels in English. You've been living in Korea for a while, so I imagine you can get through many of your daily activities speaking Korean. Do you read Korean fluently? Although it's written phonetically, it still takes time to catch on to reading a non-Roman-alphabet.

My favorite choice for kids (of any age) near Pompidou Center is Dame Tartine, the open-face sandwich cafe right by the Stravinsky Fountain. It's a wonderful spot for photographs and people-watching, too!

I that compartmentalized plate! Even a separate compartment for sauce! What is "horseradish fruit"? The markets here sell marungay leaves, but fruit?

A friend of ours in the military had a pet dog (who died a few months ago at a ripe old age) that he "liberated" in Korea. That dog adored him. I wonder if she had an inkling of what her fate would've been.

Hi Willows! Welcome to eGullet. My very favorite Japanese cookbook is At Home with Japanese Cooking by Elizabeth Andoh. It's out-of-print but available used on Amazon.com. Very clear instructions with line drawings, and the food tastes like what my friends' mothers in Japan used to cook. Her latest cookbook, Washoku: Recipes From The Japanese Home Kitchen, delves more into the philosophies behind Japanese cuisine, but still retains the flavor of home-cooking.

Mine never made it far enough for a recipe. I just parboiled them, shocked them in cold water, and we ate them with our fingers! (Next time I plan to broil them in pairs spiralled with bacon.)

Interesting about the savory oatmeal. I can't abide oatmeal cereal -- it's so bland! Maybe I need to try it with some broth, ginger, and scallions. Breakfast of champions, ya' know!

Woo-hoo! Welcome to the world of blogging! (I guessed it was you from the photos in the teaser.) Did you live in the USA before moving to Korea? I'll be curious to see your cross-cultural take on food -- Korean and American filtered through Filipina eyes. As I think you picked up from my blog at Christmas, one of my best friends here is Filipina, married to an American. They lived in Osaka, Japan for umpteen years.

That looks lovely!

That's the most original way of eating cereal I ever heard!

Here's a third recipe for ensaymadas -- this one does contain salt. In yeast dough recipes, salt affects the action of the yeast, so if you add salt to a recipe that doesn't call for it, the dough might not rise as much. However, it you aren't adverse to experimenting, go ahead! (I've never made ensaymadas as they're so readily available here.)

What's the philosophy of zucchini? ← I'm just suspicious about how anything so easy to grow could actually be that good? I doubt if zucchini themselves have any particular philosophy. SB (perhaps they're libertines ) ← Actually, I think they're probably conspiring to take over the world.

As others have said, I think it depends on the size of the group -- and the pace at which you're eating. If you seem to have finished your meal, the staff assumes you're ready to leave. If you're still picking tidbits, request another pot of tea, etc., they assume you want to take your time.