Holy crud

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So for Haley’s birthday, I made brownies (from scratch!) in muffin cups to take to school to share with her class. For her party, she’s having 4 girls over. They’ll go to a karaoke room right after school, and then come home for pizza and girly stuff. I’m making a veggie tray with spinach onion dip, possibly guacamole, and ordering pizza. Oh yeah, and the cake… Korean cakes taste weird, so I made one for her. From scratch. Oh my goodness… Chocolate sour cream cake, with peanut butter frosting and chocolate ganache. Here it is in our fridge:

Assuming I don’t drop it or some other catastrophe, I’ll try to take a couple of photos tomorrow with the candle… 🙂

Anyhow, this cake was a pain in the butt to make, but if it tastes half as good as I think it will*, it’s totally worth the effort a couple of times a year 🙂

* Of course I licked my fingers a couple of times, but I haven’t gotten to taste all the components (cake, frosting, ganache) at the same time…
Location:Jwa 3(sam)-dong,Busan,South Korea

If you say so…

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Today I went back for my 3 day checkup. I feel a lot better. I’m still snotty and coughing, but my incipient sinus infection is gone. I’m a little sick, but I’m not dragging around feeling exhausted and with that overall achy feeling. So yay for Korean drugs 🙂

My doctor decided to change my prescription, since I’d responded so well. He said he was removing some medicine and adding some cough medicine.

Growing up, I was a fairly sickly kid. Seems like I caught just about every bug that came around. So I took antibiotics a few times a year for the whole time I was growing up. And every time, the family doctor would lecture me that even if I felt better, I still had to finish all my antibiotics so that I wouldn’t create drug resistant germs.

So I asked the Korean doctor if I had been on antibiotics, and if it was ok to stop after only 3 days. After a discussion clarifying the meaning of “antibiotics”, he said it was ok to stop. I relayed my childhood doctor’s instructions, but he assured me that since my illness had been so slight, I didn’t need to take antibiotics anymore**. Ok… If you say so… I just hope my sinus infection doesn’t come back resistant to that antibiotic. Meanwhile, I can hear Dr. John protesting in my mind’s ear…

I also told him that the medicine packets made me silly, and asked if he could give me something with fewer side effects. He said he’d try, but I got the impression that anything that’s effective is going to make me loopy.

** Koreans don’t wear seatbelts either, which seems to trigger the same sort of “Uh oh, I’m breaking the rules!” instinct in me. The seatbelts in the back seat of most Korean taxis don’t even work, so I usually try to sit up front. If I don’t wear a seatbelt, I have a nagging, “something’s wrong” feeling, and the last thing I need is added anxiety while I’m watching my driver perform death-defying maneuvers in Korean traffic.

High As A Kite

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I’ve been battling a cold for the last week, but it started turning in to a sinus infection. So… time to go to the doctor. I hadn’t been to the doctor yet in Korea, so it was an experience for me. The receptionist spoke no English, and my Korean is very minimal. She asked for my alien ID card and my insurance card. Then she spent a looong time looking up my insurance information on the computer, and asked me to call my work so she could talk to them. Twice. Finally, the doctor came out to tell me (he spoke some English) that my insurance wasn’t in the system so they couldn’t help me. At that moment, the receptionist found my information**. So I did get to see the doctor. After the most cursory examination I’ve *ever* had (he stuck a metal popsicle stick in my mouth and asked me to say “Ah” and then asked me a few questions – total time, 5 minutes) he sent me to a back room where I got a shot. At the time I thought it was antibiotics, but my coworkers later told me it was just vitamins. Then I took my prescription to the pharmacy downstairs where the pharmacist (the doctor’s brother) prepared my medicines. Holy crap. You know those pill containers older people use to keep track of their daily medication? Korean pharmacists make these little plastic packets for you that are a lot like those. Except I had a packet of pills 3 times a day.

Yes, this is only 3 days worth of medication.***

So when I got home I cooked dinner and took my first dose. After dinner I basically passed out on my bed. The plan had been to do a little grading, but the minute I was horizontal it was lights out. This was not a bad thing; I’d been having trouble sleeping because of my cough, so it was a relief to get a good night’s sleep. The next day I took my morning packet and went to work. Hmmm… I feel… funny…

At lunch I took my afternoon packet. My next class was Algebra 2. About halfway through the class, I thought to myself, “Oh yes. I think those drugs have hit my bloodstream. I can feel waves of drugs in my brain. My face tingles. If I close my eyes, I can feel the earth rotating. Yes, I am as high as a kite. And I have to teach Algebra…”

And that has been my introduction to medicine in Korea.

** I was inclined to be cranky about it when I was talking with my Korean coworker the next day, but she explained that she has the same problem with her sons, as they have English names. Apparently, translating English names into Korean is pretty nebulous. So when your name is entered into the system (and it has to be written in Korean) it is up to the person doing the data entry how to sound out your name. Which can be pretty comical, and makes finding your information later a crapshoot.

*** BTW, the total cost for my doctor’s visit and prescription? About $8.

Warmer Weather

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The weather has gotten so much warmer that I decided not to wear my long underwear for my triumphant return to school after the spring break. I guess the school agreed with me; the central heating was shut off. *shiver*

Crockpot “Hollandaise” Roast Chicken :)

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I made this for dinner tonight… I was skeptical, but it turned out great! And it was really easy, too 🙂
Crockpot “Hollandaise” Roast Chicken
http://littlehouseinthesuburbs.com/2012/03/crockpot-hollandaise-roast-chicken.html

Ingredients:
one hen, icky gibblet bag removed
salt (and/or preferred seasoning blend)
Aluminum foil
3-6 egg YOLKS
1-2T lemon juice
pinch salt
possible extra slosh of olive oil or wad of butter if you can have it
Directions:
1.  Place rinsed, dried hen in crockpot, breast side up, on a big enough wad of aluminum foil to keep it off the bottom, but not touching the top.  Season well with salt and/or seasoning blend.  (We like creole seasoning!)
2.  Heat on low for, six hours, then crank to high for last hour. (Or you can do the reverse, I think. It’s just to crisp the outside.)
3.  Remove chicken and allow to rest.
4.  Pour “drippin’s” through a sieve to remove big yuck flakes. Eyeball how much it is.  (Different chickens give off different amounts of liquid.)
5.  Place not-scalding-hot drippin’s in a medium saucepan.
6.  For every one cup of liquid, beat together three yolks and a tablespoon of lemon juice.
7.  Add egg mixture to not-scalding-totally-make-poached-eggs-immediately drippin’s and beat.
8.  Doubt that there is enough fat in there to emulsify properly, and slosh in a glug of olive oil or dump in a few pats of butter. (I can’t have butter.)
9.  Heat on medium-low, whipping constantly, until thickened.
10.  Taste, adjust seasoning (remember all that seasoning you put on the hen before you cooked her before you try to salt it again.)
Serve over chicken….it’s HEAVEN.
YUM!!!!

Bread

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So I finished the last day of school before spring break, and on the way home I stop by Paris Baguette to pick up some bread since we were out.

Holy crap, I was just there 2 days ago!!! Where do I get my bread now??? So I got some bread from the corner store as an emergency measure, but it was only so so. And bread here in Korea is already not so great so…
I decided to learn how to bake bread. I’ve been making my own bread for years, ever since I got my first bread machine back in college, but I’ve never made bread by hand before.
After reading around on the internet, I made the New York Times No Knead Bread. It made a nice looking, rustic loaf 🙂 As promised it had a crunchy crust and a holey crumb.

However, Haley and I decided we didn’t really like our crust that crunchy. So I found an alteration of that recipe: The Cook’s Illustrated Almost No Knead Bread. 
We also wanted our bread to be a sandwich loaf, rather than a round boule, so I bought a loaf pan (for the low, low price of $19! Yeah, that’s Korea…)
Result: Yay!!! Yummy sandwich bread at home 🙂 I made a white loaf and then a whole wheat loaf, and both turned out well. Softer crust, finer crumb… And tasty 🙂 Here’s a photo of the remains of our whole wheat loaf (it used to be rather larger!)
Oh, and it turns out Paris Baguette is just being renovated; they’ll be back in business on the 6th 🙂

Salmon Dinner

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I was complaining to my Korean coworker about the stupid, bony little fish they eat here, and how sad I was when I cooked fish for dinner and we got bones in every bite. She explained that in a Korean family, the mom cooks the fish and then *picks through it with chopsticks*, removing the bones for everyone in the family. No, really. Happily, a Canadian coworker overheard our conversation and mentioned that Emart has salmon fillets for sale. Oh yeah! When I bought the fillets, the fish monger explained that it was imported from Chile. Wow. Anyhow, tonight’s (very late) dinner: teriyaki marinated salmon, rice, and broccoli. 🙂

Location:Jwa-dong,Busan,South Korea

They’re not kidding…

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No joke, this recipe really does make the Absolute Best Pancake Syrup!

Makes: 2 1/2 cups of syrup

Ingredients:

1/2 cup butter
1 cup sugar
1 cup buttermilk
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon corn syrup or honey
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
* buttermilk substitute
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 cup milk (less 1 tbsp)
Directions:
Bring butter, sugar, buttermilk, vanilla extract, corn syrup, and cinnamon to a simmer in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Once simmering, whisk in baking soda. It will foam up quite a bit; whisk and cook for 5 more minutes or so (till the foam is mostly gone) before removing from heat. Serve warm.

Notes:
If you don’t have buttermilk, measure 1 tbsp lemon juice into 1 cup and fill the rest of the way with milk.
The milk will curdle as the mixture boils. Don’t worry — it’ll be fine after you whisk it 🙂

The syrup will thicken as it cools, so make it up before you start cooking your pancakes and it will be perfect by the time you need it 🙂

…back in 5 minutes.