Domestic Goddess

Part 2 of the Janghowon street market scene... Men hunker down to drink and eat at this snack stand. That serves gukbap (beef blood stew over rice). A banchan stand which about 30 different covered trays... A second-hand souvenir knick-knack paddy whack shop. Complete with ancient warrior helmet. Boiled pork hocks vendor who speaks suprisingly good English. A typical veggie stand... Hot steamed bao buns served fresh to a crowd of customers. 3-inch long strawberries sold for 10 dollars per container. Leeks for the everyday korean dishes. A fishy stall... Billy gets up close and personal with the tiny crabs. Shellfish galore. Mr. Soybean Sprout guy... 1 basket costs about a dollar. Fresh 'shrooms for 2 dollars a basket. Freddie Kruger's stall... nah, just joking A new butcher opens up and celebrates by throwing a free barbeque for everyone. I buy a slab of pork to fix menudo tomorrow. No, the piggy head is not mine. That ends my street market report. Upcoming is the Sunday dinner that we had - Grilled Lemon-Vinegar chicken.

The Janghowon street market is a weekly market that falls every 4 and 9 (or dates ending in 4 and 9). In other words, it happens every 5 days. Various vendors come from all over to sell their produce and wares. Everything is sold here - from shoes, to clothes, to freshly cooked bao buns & dumplings, etc. Truck selling those small korean melons (smells like juicy fruit gum). Handicapped vendors (deaf/mute) sell japanese cakes and waffles filled with cream. Plastic flowers and plants for black-thumb gardeners like me. I confess... I kill potted plants. Strawberry truck vendor bantering with his customers. Trays of preserved fruits and plantain chips. Real plants this time. The shellfish truck with his sea cucumbers, clams, oysters, and shrimp. I'm a regular customer! Acorn jelly blocks (great with soy sauce, leeks and peppers) and basins of silk worm larvae (shudder). Blocks of freshly made tofu. They're still steaming when we past by. Korea rice cake balls stuffed with potato... Dried fish vendor wrestling with his ware... You can get pots and pans here too. That's part 1. I need to upload more pics and I'll post more in part 2.

Ok, I think I've covered all of the questions, now we go back to cooking/eating. Sunday was street market day, so the boys and I went out. Before I show you the market, lemme show you where and what we ate - at a Samgyeopsal Restaurant. The kids love samgyeopsal (3-layer pork belly, and 2 of those layers are fat). I guess it is the Filipino blood in them, the innate love for porky dishes. Samgyeopsal can be fried or grilled before you. This restaurant grills them over coals. Yum! First, they give you the basics - water, cup, chopsticks and spoon, sesame oil with salt, and a cold, wet towellete. The meat is then slapped onto the grill. The hovering agassi (lady or miss in korean) even helps turn the slices over and cut them into manageable bites. Two different kinds of wrapping - lettuce and young napa cabbage. I leave the chili peppers alone. Now we go to the ban chan (side dishes). Clockwise from the left we have: sauteed bean sprouts, spicy julienned leeks, radish kimchee, raw spicy crab and braised wild mountain herbs (a spring season specialty). Here we have regular kimchee, white kimchee, braised whole soy beans, the typical salad with mayo, corn & apples , guchujang paste and raw garlic. A hot pot of dwenjjang jjige (soybean stew) contain chockful of tofu blocks, zucchini slices, potato and root veggies. Something I never seen served before - oysters with spicy sauce. My bite before I bit... Jai digging into his favorite food... After finishing the hearty meal, we pay and go put our shoes back on. I'll upload the market pics next and post them here.

Lucy, we're about an hour away from Kunsan, we do get a lot of military vehicles and aircrafts here in our area. Hueys flying overhead... Military trucks in front of Jai's school... You asked about pets, well living in an apartment makes for little choices in that subjct. We used to have a hamster but he died last Autumn. All we have now are four little eels named Larry, Harry, Flo and Moe.

Jai was named by my parents after the Spanish betting game - "Jai-alai". His full name is Rodd Cameron. (I was a single mom before I got married). Billy is named after his grandpappy - William Earl III.

Nakji - I didn't know you lived in Korea for sometime. Here is where my hubby works - Junior Collee Institute. For those who don't know, hagwons are languge tutorial schools mainly teaching English or Chinese (90% of them are the latter). We are not close to any of the big stores that you mentioned ( Carrefour, Grandmart, or Homeplus), they're more than hour away by bus and we don't have a car. We do make special trips to Seoul to buy American and Filipino/asian food stuff. I don't have a conventional oven, I have a convection one. Turbo Broiler oven Jai goes to the local elementary school here. He's in the 6th grade and can read and write korean very well. We're home-schooling Billy as he is having trouble learning korean. Here's my son's school - Janghowon Elem. School This was taken during the last Autumn Games. See the load-carrying military helicopter on top of the building?

I really don't know one, I was home-taught! Thanks Moosemouse for sugesting one. Eldest son Jai is a bit laidback when it comes to cooking, but Billy loves to wash dishes and help saute meats. My stove, which came with the apartment, is a gas stove. Cooking in Korea is a woman's sole responsibility. Most typical Korean men don't cook or know how to (common complaint of my korean friends). As for doggie bags, it is unheard of in most big restaurants here in Korea. You just don't the leftover food home, it has to be consumed there and then. I guess it would have to be something about the freshness of the "taste" (I am getting korean with my description).

Thanks! I have an innate fear of getting hungry and opening the freezer door to find nothing there to reheat. LOL

Last post for today before I head for bed (I have a headache and it won't go away ) Presenting my fridge and my pantry... (the antiquated fridge came with the apartment furnished by my hubby's school for us). Our freezer (complete with homaemade stock, leftover sinigang, homemade breakfast sausage, leftover pasta, etc.) Freezer door contents... Hubby was bewildered when I was taking pics of our freezer contents. He actually exclaimed "People would actually want to see our freezer?!!!" Note: peanut butter jars actually contain tomato sauce. The organized clutter of our fridge... Drinks for the kids and hubby (I don't drink Coke and milk). The pull-out veggie bin... (there's bell-peppers, avocados, lemons, mushrooms, celery, garlic sprouts, leeks and cherry tomatoes in there). Our spice cabinet... The snack cabinet for the kids and for our midnight raids... And completely off-topic, our boys Jai and Billy in their pillow fort.

Whew! You are right Ah Leung! 'Tis a lot of work and I have just started. To answer your question, koreans do eat rice for breakfast. Koreans usually eat a light meal of veggie soup and rice or fish and rice for breakfast. Eating cereals and bread have just started here, such as the consumption of cheese (koreans think most cheese stink). Almost all restaurants and fast food places don't serve breakfast here. In fact, McDonalds only just started their breakfast menu a couple of months ago, despite being here in Korea for more than a decade.

Michael aka Pan - thanks! Hope you find fun as much as I do. Brekkies today was a tag team affair with Domestic Hubby. I fried the bacon (while my pot of water boils away for my decaf coffee). And pull out the minced garlic for the fried rice (a Filipino breakfast staple). Hubby makes scrambled eggs (fluffy like hotel and restaurant ones)... My son's plate (he prefers sunny-side up eggs)

Chufi - thanks for the warm welcome. I'm fairly new to this thing called blogging, I do hope I do justice like the other wonderful blogs that have preceeded mine. Suzy - No, I have never lived or been to the USA. We're in the middle of getting my emigration papers but since 9/11, everything is taking a loooong time. Yes, I was delighted to see that your best friend is a Filipina.

The pics here were taken yesterday during my morning run. I run from our apartment building in Gamgok district to Janghowon. The rising sun peaks behind our apartment building complex. Technically, we live in another province called Chungcheongbuk-do (quite a mouthful eh? try writing it down everytime on documents asking for your addy). Janghowon is in Gyeonggido province (the same one where Seoul is located). This is the tiny town square, or should I say town triangle. Down further on the right street is the bus terminal. This is the bridge that separates two provinces. The river that flows under is called Cheongmicheon River. During the winter, we get a lot of ducks, cranes and geese. From a distance you can see our apartment buildings. This is the main road bissecting Gamgok district. A small bridge with a hill behind it. I just found out that there is a trail going up it with statues of korean deities at each rest point. We might hike up there this weekend. Business like language tutorial schools come and go here in Korea. Here's a new one coming up. I encounter a lot during my run: people hurrying to work, children off to school and signs like this that make me smile. I usually run for about an hour and cover 4-5 miles. After this, I shall be posting breakfast pics, I don't usually eat breakfast before I exercise.

Now how do I start this? Funny, for a writer I am suddenly tongued-tied (or should I say writer's/blogger's block?). I have never written a blog before and never had an inclination to start one. When I became a member of the eGullet community, I would spend hours reading about food blogs by Ann, Ah Leung, Mooshmouse, Alinka, Torakris, etc. I would marvel at their writing, drool over the food pics, dream about visiting their country. Then snowangel wrote to me and asked if I wanted to do one. I said "Heck, why not?" So now here is my very own blog. To introduce myself, I'm a Filipina who's married to an American, living in South Korea for the past 4 years now. My husband is an English teacher for one of the many language institutes in this country while I stay at home and reign supreme in the kitchen. We have two sons, Jai who is 12 years old and Billy, 6 years old. We live about an hour and a half away from Seoul in a tiny sleepy town of Janghowon. Janghowon has a population of about 7,000 and is mainly an agricultural town. It is famous for its peaches, rice and chili peppers. We actually have numerous statues of peaches and peppers, I'll post pictures of them later. I have always loved cooking. I grew up in a long line of family cooks. My mother is from Cavite City in the Philippines. Cavite is famous for its fiesta food, namely the seafood & Spanish dishes. As a littler girl, I would remember being handed a sharp knife and asked to cut up veggies and meat on my very own chopping board. I never complained because I would be so intrigued in the marvelous preparation of the different viands and sauces. It was in high school when I finally was given a chance to cook for the family and have never stopped since. Now I am married, with kids. Fortunately I have not only married a wonderful guy but a great cook as well. He has cooked for several restaurants and hotels and it is neat to have someone cook fluffy hotel-scrambled eggs for you for breakfast. My hubby taught me how to cook Fried Chicken (he's a Southern boy, from Henderson, Ky), burritos, Ky BBQ Ribs and a lot of mouth-watering Southern dishes. So now, our boys are growing up with vast taste for both western and asian food. It is my pleasure to show you how our typical meals would be during the week and I will also include several Korean dishes (mostly from the local restaurants here). So sit back, relax and let me share my world with you.

Noises Off ← You got it Dsquare! One of my favorite comedy movies with Carol Burnett, Christopher Reeve, Michael Caine, etc.

Tomato paste is a staple for many Filipino kitchens. Our cuisine is influenced a lot by Spanish culture, considering we were under their rule for more than 300 years. Tomato paste is used in a lot of tomato-based dishes like menudo, mechado, afritada, paella, etc. We usually get our tomato paste in little cans, hence no waste at all. I still haven't encountered tomato paste in little tubes.

I can't believe that Japan has Lotteria, too! I always thought of them as Korea's answer to McDonald's. We used to have a Lotteria here in our little town but the owner decided to make the store into a 24-hour convenience store instead.

I am really digging this thread - both for the opinions and the grains of history and trivia.

Here's a new movie... actress: And I take the sardines. No, I leave the sardines. No, I take the sardines. director: You leave the sardines and you hang up the phone. actress: Yes, right. I hang up the phone. director: And you leave the sardines. actress: I leave the sardines? director: You leave the sardines. actress: I hang up the phone and I leave the sardines? director: Right! actress: We've changed that, have we, dear? director: No, dear...

Thank God somebody finally got it! You're right Caroled!

More clues: 79. Extremely bloody piece of beef being roughly hewn in a very genteel restaurant CLUE: This scene follows a very bloody scene where our heroes have slain a white-frocked creature of the night. CLUE2: Said hero tells 2 distraught couple that their friend had been driven with a stake in her heart and head chopped off.

Quote: (Next question: how to eat those crabs.) With your hands. Nothing is more efficient and downright satisfying (especially licking the juices and sauces on your fingers)

Balut is a wonderful! Of course, it is an acquired taste (much like durian). Balut is often given to newlyweds (especially the groom) for making the "knees strong" (sexual euphemism inserted here). I just love slurping the broth and eating the rich, custard like yolk with sea salt. Aaaah... perfect for midnight snacks.

Domestic hubby does this with cornflakes, sliced banana and milk. If we have Cheerios, he has that with the same (bananas and milk) for his midnight snacks. I can't stand the taste of cereal or milk.

OMG ROFL