It has been brought to my attention that I have not done a food post in a very long time. I could blame this on the fact that it is difficult to make food here and I was able to use only a frying pan and a stove top. But, That wouldn't be the whole truth. It is also because I have been crazy food lazy the past several months. Working from two o'clock to nine o'clock means that dinner happens around eleven p.m. if I have enough energy to actually cook and shop for food. It is also harder to find food that I consider everyday, easy meals.
For example, Butter. Butter here in South Korea is expensive. A four pack of butter that would be about 3 bucks at home costs an astounding nine dollars here. And I don't know about you, but I happen to like using butter to cook. Fried eggs just don't taste the same with olive oil in the pan in place of butter. And, while I love olive oil for cooking veggies in the oven, sometimes you need that fatty-buttery goodness to soak the veggies in when they are a bit to bitter or old.
And the veggies here can be a bit different then the ones at home. While a lot of them come from local farmers or nearby farms and are far fresher then a lot of the veggies back home, this also means that they are smaller, or larger, then I am used to, varieties I haven't seen before, or not as supermarket-flawless as those used to wal-mart and the pig back home are used to seeing. Now, the bumps and bruises and dirt don't bother me so much, I did spend two summers eating veggies that came mostly from my own garden, so I am used to dirt and bugs and oddly shaped produce. What gets me, is the ability to tell what it is that I am buying. A lot of leafy greens available here are not like any I have encountered at home. Most of the time, the names are simply written in Hangul, so translating them can be tough to impossible, and if it is in english, there is a good chance the name isn't right anyway. The other day, I was buying bell peppers and the package said "Paprika" on it. I know that paprika is made from peppers, but I couldn't help but laugh a little.
I have also run into a problem that foods I am used to being cheap and readily available, are very much the opposite here. I found some asparagus here a few weeks ago, the first asparagus I have seen in korea, and I could buy a package that contained five stalks of asparagus, and cost about 3 USD. Anyone who knows me can attest to how much I LOVE asparagus, but even I couldn't justify spending so much for so little. And beef here.... Oh man. First, I do want to mention I understand why beef is so insanely (to my mind) expensive here. South Korea is mountains, or at least really big steep hills, which means that grazing land is not very extensive here. So cows are not as easy to come by as, say, a pig or goat. But, this doesn't mean I don't get depressed when I want nothing more then a nice big homemade hamburger and the cost of the ground beef for one burger is about $10-$12 bucks. And don't even get me started on the steak.
But, I have started to cook again. Maybe it is a sign I am finally settling in to the new place, maybe it is a sign that I am really bored with eating the same five meals at work each week, maybe it is a sign I have too much free time... Who knows. But it has all been tasty so far, and the toaster oven I acquired has helped a great deal to expand my food options. So never free friend wo was concerned about the lack of food posts and photos, there shall be many more to come.
