jschyun

I need to get my ass to texas

I can't think of any Korean dishes that are really all that spicy. Kimchee? I agree with whoever said that kimchee is more about the fermentation, the brightness, that sparkly quality, flavors and textures other than the heat. In fact a lot of types of kimchi are not hot at all. We do eat Korean peppers raw, and i guess they are hot. I'm not much of a hot fiend either. I consider myself an average hotness lover, and they are not horribly hot to me. I would say that based on what people have told me, Thai is probably right up there. I'm curious about Jamaican.

Whew, looks like summer is coming early this year. I got blooms on my tomatoes and squash and hopefully that means some good eating soon!

I'm not a big fan of sweet lady jane, but I can't think of any other options at the moment, I'm not in L.A. I've been at events where slj did the cake (I think the berry one and the chocolate) and I have been to the shop several times. I like a more tender textured cake. Minority opinion of course.

Lavender is pretty hard to start from seed. Lavender, chervil, chamomile, and I forget what else, need light to germinate. The only way I have successfully started them is by sprinkling the seeds on top of a pot filled with moist jiffy mix or whatever potting soil we had around the house. then I stuck the whole pot in a zip lock bag, closed it and put it in on a windowsill. Really works! the hard part is getting those little guys to grow up. Right now I have one successful plant out of 20 growing and it's only 1/2 inch tall after 1 month of growing. I overwatered once and killed most of them. I think I should have left them in the baggie until they were bigger. I don't know. Good luck. You probably want to shelter them from real Texas heat until they are fairly well established. Mine will go in the ground this fall, probably. It's a real pain. It's much easier to just get a cutting from an existing plant. I did it because i couldn't stop myself from buying all sorts of lavender seed, and had to use them.

I think Woo Lae Oak is just being redesigned to be bigger and better, copying Chosun Galbee's redesign. I don't remember when they're reopening but probably in a year or two. Expect more of this to happen in Koreatown, as the competition grows even fiercer.

What days are you guys going? I'm surprised we didn't do some egullet thing for this. I guess everyone's busy, including me.

Chamomile (grows all over the place in my garden) Munstead lavender English, caraway and lemon thymes garlic (chinese) chives, regular chives marseilles, lime, thai, genovese basils korean mint (quenip) echinacea narrow leaved peppermint, spearmint that just died rosemary that just died french tarragon dill summer savory, winter ones got killed lemon balm this silver colored herb that supposed to be for medicine but I never eat and just carve the plant into whatever shape I want, ball, square, mickey mouse, cone. i forget what else since mom is taking care of it right now, hence some dead plants.

Oh geez, if you ever grow carrots (probably a little too late this spring), I really recommend the variety "Mokum". I got some from www.superseeds.com, but there's a bunch of places that sell it. Just had some and it was so sweet and brittle it was delicious. The tops were kind of thin so I was surprised there were carrots under there. I ate some in the garden and gave one to my friend. I don't normally like carrots that much, just grow them for my mom. They look different too, darker than usual and somewhat translucent. All my other carrots were just as carroty (yech) as usual. I grew some yellow carrots this year, and didn't particularly like them, but maybe it's the variety.

Wow, that was great. As usual, skchai, you are a wealth of information. I like how you took the pic of the sundubu early enough to get it in mid bubble. I have to admit a preference for sundubu that is so fragile the curds collapse into small particles, and the resulting dish almost looks like kong bigi chigae (soybean dreg stew). sorry to hear about your shellfish allergy. I think i may be mildly allergic to beef, but I don't want to go to the doctor and confirm it. -- ooh, just noticed the sign that says they have cold noodles in soybean milk (naeng kong guksu) I love those!

Sweet Willie, what are your other top 2 pizza places?

s'kat I noticed someone got the Renaissance Lodge recently for $75 using Priceline. If you use this tip, pls use www.amazing-bargains.com to log into priceline.

I have seeds from last year's trading, but i decided to get rid of my purple bell pepper seeds first. I can't wait to grow them next year though. Let's see, this year, I'm growing Korean peppers (long green f1), Thai Dragon f1, czech black (heirloom), hungarian wax, ring of fire. Sweet peppers: Islander (purple bell), corno di toro. I guess I should get some orange bells as well. I always start inside, in a pot, with a little office lamp aimed directly at the surface of the soil. I usually get around 70-100% germination using this technique. Peppers need a lot of heat to germinate. Once they are big enough, I separate into 6 packs which I then water with Peter's plant food water (about 3/4 tsp to a 33 oz water bottle) I keep them in a sunny window in my office. Once they look like those plants in the nurseries, I start hardening them off in the backyard. Pain in the you know where, but I just can't help myself. I personally would never start peppers outdoors because it's harder to control the outdoor environment.

I haven't done this for a while, but I used to eat those Gerber Toddler Stix, chicken or turkey, once in a while. My friend said it was the most disgusting thing he ever saw me eat, (which is saying something) but I kept on eating them. I don't know what the hell was wrong with me. Lately, I've gotten hooked on Korean blood sausage, and can't seem to stop, but I'm not as ashamed of that, because they're actually good.

Geez, it's so hot here, I want to die. 88 degrees and counting. My lettuces and such are done. Thank God I put in the tomatoes early this year. This is going to be one hot summer. I just pulled the last of the baby "Mokum" carrots of the year. Brittle, sweet, and tiny, I'm going to grow them again. I wish I was patient enough to let them grow full size.

If you planted 5-6 weeks ago, that was only say 40-50 days ago. Sounds like your plants are ready to flower soon and after that the peas start coming pretty quickly.

Actually, you don't have to eat rice with a spoon, unless you're in a formal or somehow fancy situation. When you're just eating out with friends, it's okay to use chopsticks. I can't say for everyone, but at least the Korean friends I have eat rice with chopsticks all the time, so I never thought twice about it. My mother usually gives us a spoon for our rice, however. But don't pick up your bowl, unless you're eating by yourself and nobody is watching. Semi-interesting story, I was eating at a Chinese friend's house and their family wanted to know why I didn't just pick up the rice bowl and shovel the rice in my mouth. They were sincerely concerned that I didn't have proper rice-eating etiquette. So I picked it up and ate that way, but it felt very strange.

So how was brunch? I've never done brunch, though I've had other meals there.

You gotta really water and fertilize those artichokes if you want big fat ones. Artichokes grow wild around here, and also my coop neighbors grow them. I notice the people that really pamper them get big fat ones and the non pamperers get little ones. I think they would probably grow best in straight compost. Personally, I think they take up too much room for me to allocate any of my precious coop garden space to them. Those plants are huge! The wild ones have really pretty neon purple flowers that form from the choke (which is really a flower bud). Alas, with all the housing projects around here, they'll soon be gone.

If you decide to go to Little Italy, I kind of like the sacrapantina at Stella's Bakery, though it's little more than some white cake with cream filling, with cake crumbs on top. I think it's flavored with almond/Amaretto/some liquor that I forget, memory is hazy, though I just had it several weeks ago. Nice with coffee. However, across the street is an American institution that you can't miss if you've never been. Ben & Jerry's ice cream parlor. My favorite flavors are Cherry Garcia and Mint Chocolate Cookie, but they have all manner of flavors for most tastes. Speaking of tastes, you can get a bunch of free tastes before deciding on your flavor of choice.

I remember Extraordinary Desserts. Is that in Hillcrest? I think it is. It's a small freestanding building where you can get huge slices of cake for $7 a slice. Nice lil patio area. I don't remember the flavors, but they were decent. I want to go to Encinitas again to give Chuao Chocolatier another try. I got some grainy centered chocs there the last time. Expensive.

You can get these in the U.S. but I think frozen and then you pop them in the toaster or microwave them. I think I've only had the red bean versions, and the honey/sugar/cinnamon/whatever flavor. Haven't had those in a while. Not as good as street grilled though. I love all those stories of people who take a simple item and make millions of dollars of it. My dad told me about a jok bal restaurant in NY, back in the 60's that was very popular and made tons of money. Also, it was probably responsible for gall bladder disease in the region. --actually, you might be able to get the real thing in the U.S. Anyone? I know that in certain parts of L.A. and Orange County, you can get roasted chestnuts from vendors with those metal roasters, off the street (I saw this at Rowland Heights), as well as little walnut cakes and other type of goodies from bakeries that bake their treats in front of of you. But so far I have not seen any ho dduk operations in CA. I haven't been out much lately.

Wildseed Farms got very good reviews here. Ooh, they say inexpensive seed in generous amounts. Now you're talking my language. They only have the most basic herbs, but for a dollar a pack, that isn't bad at all. Garden Watchdog Reviews No negative reviews.

yeah, their selections keep getting better and better. I was very surprised to see they even have a Korean item! (hot pepper). Burpee is also carrying the chamae melon (a Korean melon) which stunned the hell out of me. I got some lettuce seeds (Sunset and Forellenschluss) from Bakers Creek and I swear they sent me like an 1/8 cup of seed in that packet! Also, I got the Blacktail watermelon from them. Will tell you how they are. I remember the days when Shepherds Seeds rocked my lil gardening world. It's sad what happened. I still have some of their seed, including Italian Gold tomato and some SunGold tomato seeds. Yes, luring you to the dark side, fifi.

Try looking for your crowder peas here. They have a couple but maybe not the exact variety you remember? I've ordered from these guys (Bakers Creek) before and I really like them.