I have about a million food allergies, so sometimes finding something I enjoy eating, that doesn't make me sick is a challenge.
A funny thing happened to me on Thursday morning this week. I actually woke up without stomach pain. The last time that happened I was still a public school teacher living halfway around the world.
Last week at the Remembrance Day service I was at, the MC told the audience to buy a beer for a veteran. I took this heart, but did not want to encourage the consumption of alcoholic beverages, so instead I decided to take a veteran out and buy them lunch.
Hee Seop had spent 2 years in the military as part of his compulsory service while living in the R.O.K. He said he knew of a good restaurant where we could get some authentic Korean food.
It was called Sura, and it was located on Pembina Hwy.
Truly, this was a meal worth getting a little bit sick for, hours afterwards. We had bbq'd beef ribs called Galbi. The ribs were cooked in a sweet sauce and the meat was cut up into thin, bite sized slices. The main course, of course, was plain white rice, which went very well with the beef.
The chopsticks were metal, but they had these long plastic handles on them. Soju was available for the cost of $16.00.
Soju is a cheap alcohol that tastes like a watered down vodka. It is sold in tiny bottles, under a half liter in size, and if a person drinks two bottles of the stuff, that person will be quite drunk.
Soju is a big part of the business culture in Korea. A friend of mine used to say he used to practice drinking Soju at home alone because he thought it would help his career. Apparently lightweight drinkers don't get very far in Korea.
In Canada, if you see a man sleeping in the street, odds are that person is homeless. In Korea, it was all too common to see drunken Korean business men sleeping on the sidewalk or on a bench.
One time I saw two drunk Korean business men sleeping on the sidewalk together in Guri. One of them was using the other guy's crotch as a pillow.
I guess when the stuff costs a dollar a bottle, you can drink it like water. When it costs 16, not so much, though I did hear from Hee Seop that he and his friends still liked to play some of the Soju drinking games from the old country.
In one of them, players pass the bottle cap around and try to flick a piece of it off with a snap of a finger.
After that has been done, the same players try to guess the secret number printed in the cap.
In the game Titanic, an empty shot glass floats in a half full glass of beer. The shot glass is filled until it sinks and that person has to drink.
I was driving, so no drinking games for me.
I give the Galbi at Sura 2 thumbs up and 5 stars (out of 5). It didn't matter to me that my body almost violently rejected the food a few hours later (hell, most things do this to me).
The Galbi did remind me of the food I used to eat in Korea, so on that front, mission accomplished!
For an authentic taste of Korean food in Canada, I highly recommend the Galbi at the Sura restaurant, on Pembina Hwy.
Just tell them Neil sent you.
bon appetite,
rymr
Sunday 18 November 2012
Saturday 10 November 2012
Food for Thought
I had planned on doing a video this week where I try apple pie again. However, with it being "Remembrance Day" on Sunday, I felt it would be inappropriate, or in bad taste to do so. Out of respect, I am going to do something different this week.
For 3 years I lived in a country that is still technically at war with its neighbor to the north, the Republic of Korea (south).
After I left Korea I joked on FB, "Go ahead north, fire away. I'm back in Canada".
I was trying to allude to the sense of relief I had.
One thing you have to get used to while living in Korea, are all of the Air Raid sirens. If a person has no idea what is going on, it can be very scary, and make that person instantly religious, as it did to me one fine afternoon, when I was caught off guard.
Silly me, later I thought, and we all had a good laugh about it.
There were three incidents while I was in Korea, involving the North, that stuck out.
The first was in July of 2008, when a South Korean tourist was shot and killed in North Korea, for straying too far away from a designated area.
The second was in March of 2010, (I was home in between) when a South Korean naval ship was sunk, allegedly (they could never prove it beyond a reasonable doubt, but...) by a torpedo from A North Korean submarine. Luckily, cooler heads prevailed, and nothing much became of it. (sadly, 46 sailors died)
The biggest incident occurred in November of 2010, when the North opened fired and began shelling the island of Yeonpyeong. The South fired back, and pretty much everyone I knew in the country, working as an ESL teacher, got a phone call from back home, with a crying mother on the other end, begging them to leave Korea immediately and come back home.
I was a little worried at this point. I was also really pissed off when I saw what the attack did to the value of the South Korean Won (it went down).
Living in Korea, I was often told to check in with the Canadian Consulate. At this time, I got lots of e-mails and phone calls from other Canadian friends on the same topic. There was an advisory from the Canadian Consulate in Seoul for all Canadian Citizens living in the country to have their passports ready, along with a few days of supplies, such as food and water. I think this was in case the North chose to invade. If they did, the Consulate had all of the check stop/rendezvous spots set up, in order to get you back to the consulate safely, and then back to Canada.
After the attack, this felt like a very real possibility. The foreigners were worried. The Koreans were not.
I guess if this is something a person grows up with, they get used to it. For me, it was a foreign concept that I just could not understand.
I feel a lot safer from war and all that type of stuff, because I live in Canada, once again.
Growing up here, I've never had to face war as part of my reality and living next to America makes me feel a lot safer. After that ship was sunk in Korea, one thing that really made me feel safe was the fact the Americans were sending an aircraft carrier. Unfortunately in this day and age, it's still true that if you want peace, you're gonna have to prepare for war. Just ask Neville Chamberlain.
.
For 3 years I lived in a country that is still technically at war with its neighbor to the north, the Republic of Korea (south).
After I left Korea I joked on FB, "Go ahead north, fire away. I'm back in Canada".
I was trying to allude to the sense of relief I had.
One thing you have to get used to while living in Korea, are all of the Air Raid sirens. If a person has no idea what is going on, it can be very scary, and make that person instantly religious, as it did to me one fine afternoon, when I was caught off guard.
Silly me, later I thought, and we all had a good laugh about it.
There were three incidents while I was in Korea, involving the North, that stuck out.
The first was in July of 2008, when a South Korean tourist was shot and killed in North Korea, for straying too far away from a designated area.
The second was in March of 2010, (I was home in between) when a South Korean naval ship was sunk, allegedly (they could never prove it beyond a reasonable doubt, but...) by a torpedo from A North Korean submarine. Luckily, cooler heads prevailed, and nothing much became of it. (sadly, 46 sailors died)
The biggest incident occurred in November of 2010, when the North opened fired and began shelling the island of Yeonpyeong. The South fired back, and pretty much everyone I knew in the country, working as an ESL teacher, got a phone call from back home, with a crying mother on the other end, begging them to leave Korea immediately and come back home.
I was a little worried at this point. I was also really pissed off when I saw what the attack did to the value of the South Korean Won (it went down).
Living in Korea, I was often told to check in with the Canadian Consulate. At this time, I got lots of e-mails and phone calls from other Canadian friends on the same topic. There was an advisory from the Canadian Consulate in Seoul for all Canadian Citizens living in the country to have their passports ready, along with a few days of supplies, such as food and water. I think this was in case the North chose to invade. If they did, the Consulate had all of the check stop/rendezvous spots set up, in order to get you back to the consulate safely, and then back to Canada.
After the attack, this felt like a very real possibility. The foreigners were worried. The Koreans were not.
I guess if this is something a person grows up with, they get used to it. For me, it was a foreign concept that I just could not understand.
I feel a lot safer from war and all that type of stuff, because I live in Canada, once again.
Growing up here, I've never had to face war as part of my reality and living next to America makes me feel a lot safer. After that ship was sunk in Korea, one thing that really made me feel safe was the fact the Americans were sending an aircraft carrier. Unfortunately in this day and age, it's still true that if you want peace, you're gonna have to prepare for war. Just ask Neville Chamberlain.
.
Sunday 4 November 2012
Water and Cookies
I have a sweet tooth, even if it is a picky one.
Cookies are my favourite.
In University (circa 1994/95) I used to wake up a lot with stomach pain. We turned it into a game/pool and people bet on different possibilities.
Two of my favourite suggestions were that it was an ulcer, or that I possibly had a tape worm. Luckily it turned out to be neither.
It was caused by an allergic reaction my body was having to milk. After all, what do you drink when you eat cookies? Nothing goes better with cookies than milk.
A few years later I did an allergy test and found this out. I haven't drank milk since. On a whole I try to avoid dairy products, but let's not go there...
Chocolate chip cookies are awesome.
Oatmeal raisin are another favourite.
At Christmas time I love ginger bread cookies, and during the last two years while I was away, I had my mom buy some and freeze them for me when I got home. They still tasted delicious.
BUT my favourite, and I mean FAVOURITE kind of cookie to snack on is the wafer cookie, especially if it has a chocolate filling. (not a big fan of vanilla)
As a kid, my mom used to buy these 24 packs for $2.50. The ones with the blue wrapper were vanilla, and the ones with the green were chocolate.
For the longest time they were my favourite, until I discovered something in Korea.
At a GS convenience store in Anyang I came across a small blue package containing chocolate filled wafer cookies for 2000 won (about 2 bucks). The package was about the size of a chocolate bar.
Ever since then, I have been hooked on "Loacker" brand wafer cookies.
2 years later, after I returned home to Canada, I went months without them. I decided to do a little research and I looked the company up on the web to find out if they sold their products in Canada. I sent them an e-mail, and they got back to me the next day, telling me exactly where I could purchase the cookies I wanted, in Winnipeg.
The day after that, I went on a field trip with my mom to St. Vital. It took us about a half hour to drive to the store, which was in a mall. I felt like a kid going into a toy store before Christmas, and I got to pick out my present. Took me less than a minute to find them and we bought ten packs and headed home. (total cost, 30 dollars)
It may be Halloween right now, but I am not tempted by any chocolate bars or treats. As long as I have my "Loacker" wafer cookies I don't need any other kind of treat.
They are so good they taste great, even without the milk.
bon appetite,
rymr
Cookies are my favourite.
In University (circa 1994/95) I used to wake up a lot with stomach pain. We turned it into a game/pool and people bet on different possibilities.
Two of my favourite suggestions were that it was an ulcer, or that I possibly had a tape worm. Luckily it turned out to be neither.
It was caused by an allergic reaction my body was having to milk. After all, what do you drink when you eat cookies? Nothing goes better with cookies than milk.
A few years later I did an allergy test and found this out. I haven't drank milk since. On a whole I try to avoid dairy products, but let's not go there...
Chocolate chip cookies are awesome.
Oatmeal raisin are another favourite.
At Christmas time I love ginger bread cookies, and during the last two years while I was away, I had my mom buy some and freeze them for me when I got home. They still tasted delicious.
BUT my favourite, and I mean FAVOURITE kind of cookie to snack on is the wafer cookie, especially if it has a chocolate filling. (not a big fan of vanilla)
As a kid, my mom used to buy these 24 packs for $2.50. The ones with the blue wrapper were vanilla, and the ones with the green were chocolate.
For the longest time they were my favourite, until I discovered something in Korea.
At a GS convenience store in Anyang I came across a small blue package containing chocolate filled wafer cookies for 2000 won (about 2 bucks). The package was about the size of a chocolate bar.
Ever since then, I have been hooked on "Loacker" brand wafer cookies.
2 years later, after I returned home to Canada, I went months without them. I decided to do a little research and I looked the company up on the web to find out if they sold their products in Canada. I sent them an e-mail, and they got back to me the next day, telling me exactly where I could purchase the cookies I wanted, in Winnipeg.
The day after that, I went on a field trip with my mom to St. Vital. It took us about a half hour to drive to the store, which was in a mall. I felt like a kid going into a toy store before Christmas, and I got to pick out my present. Took me less than a minute to find them and we bought ten packs and headed home. (total cost, 30 dollars)
It may be Halloween right now, but I am not tempted by any chocolate bars or treats. As long as I have my "Loacker" wafer cookies I don't need any other kind of treat.
They are so good they taste great, even without the milk.
bon appetite,
rymr
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)