Pay day took forever to arrive. We had spent money as we needed in order to get through the tough early days, eating out often and buying a few things that would last the year; gym memberships, a table and two chairs, basic kitchen equipment and our cell phones. We had put in the work to compensate for our spending, but had no money to compensate us for our work. Phone calls were made home (at least on my end) to forewarn that help might be needed - how embarrassing! - and new friends were notified that our ability to join them on the weekends was unfortunately curtailed.
[Enter: Puppy.]
The Unnamed One: I want to play play play! Yes! She's wearing those big grey curtain bottoms! I can follow her around and eat them while she walks! How fun!
[Unnamed One licks Arla's pants, begins to eat them while she's making a late dinner. She walks away while the Unnamed One continues to chew her pants, sending him flying across the smooth wood floor. This repeats nightly.]
Staying home instead of joining our bubbly (and some not-so-sociable) coworkers was easier done with an excuse to stay close to home. We told Jon's parents, Sallianne and Dale that this puppy might even save us money. Scoff. I told my parents, Rick and Judy, that we might save money this way because we'd be less likely to eat out for lunch and dinner. Got a pair of reserved nods, a shrug.
Well we may not have saved a whole whack of money so far, but we've been able to pursue other interests (reading fiction, mainly) while experiencing Korean culture on the cheap, and at home with the pup.
[Enter: Korean cookbook]
We began with the basics: rice=based dishes with enough new veg to make it feel authentic. We were also hoping that the ingredients for a traditional dish would be local and reltively cheap. A quick trip to the discount goods/food chain store, E-mart, was incredibly successful thanks in no small part to the sample ladies dotted around the store. I would walk up to these grumpy hagima (middle-aged, often working, women) with my little shopping list, smile shyly as if I had interrupted something private and important, and continue a conversation like this:
Arla: Um ... door-a-jee?
[Hagima looks confused. Arla points to the word, written in romanized letters, repeats the question.]
Arla: Door-a-jee?
[Lightbulb goes off in the mind of the hagima]
Hagima: Ah, doraji!
[Hagima runs off to another area of the produce section. Arla tries to scurry behind her without bumping into another shopper's misplaced cart or hitting anybody's elbow. The hagima speaks quickly to the woman working the open deli-type counter, instructs her to give me a certain amount of what I want - a soaking wet mound of purple-ish sea roots, also known as bellflower root - and the rest is completed with nods and smiles].
Welcome to my world as a slow-speaking, illiterate waygook among a sea of quick-talking, shopping-savvy Koreans. Luckily for Jon and I, we don't mind smiling like fools and saying thank you, kahamnasida (pron: kam-na-say-e-da), at all the wrong moments ...
Bibimbap, our first rice-based dish, was a success! After over an hour slicing beef, various types of marinated mushrooms, bracken (gosari), that weird bellflower root, cucumber, egg yolk and egg white into match-sized strips, and frying each ingredient separately in our only frying pan, we could sit down to enjoy our mock-gourmet feast!
The ingredients, clockwise from the yellow egg yolk: doraji, beef, egg white, shiitake mushroom, cucumber, gosari, and manna lichen mushrooms (seokyi beoseot) sitting atop a bed of rice and a dollop of chili paste. Yummy!!! So healthy and so tasty! If I can find the ingredients back home, I'll make it for everyone!!!
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