Pantry Scramble

As we get ready to move, cooking gets more and more challenging. Some of you might be familiar with the game of pantry scramble. The goal is to make edible meals out of what's left in your house, leaving as little as possible to throw away at the end. I am not especially good at it but am trying very hard to win. On deck tonight: tuna fish and garbanzo beans in barbecue sauce, wrapped up in tortillas and dusted with allspice, served with brussels sprouts and barley.

In what surely must be a bizarre coincidence, we are sick again. I was so sick, in fact, that I had to default on a margarita night at Chili's, and that's bad. Lucky for you, there is no poem this time. You're welcome. Not because of any particular empathy for my readers, mind you, but because the poem would be exactly the same, and where's the fun in that? But there's always a silver lining, right? Sure, it's a teeny, tiny, barely glimmering silver-ish lining, but it's better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, I always say. And here it is: extra pantry scramble points, because I got to drink the ginger ale that had been hanging around in the fridge from the last time we were sick. Otherwise, it would have been doomed to the dumpster for sure. Hooray!

In other moving related news, I have been to the library for the last time. Lloyd has to check out at the library, and after that's done I can't check out any more books. Out of the last batch, 'Open' by Andre Agassi was definitely the best. At first I thought I wouldn't bother getting it because I had already seen the good stuff on the internet: his hair weave, the drugs, and the marriage to Brooke Shields. But I picked it up anyway and was glad I did. It's a really good read and an excellent primer on how NOT to raise your kid. A definite do-read if you get a chance.

And, here's a link to an American cartoonist living in Korea that my Osan friends might like called Roketship. If you don't live in Korea, you probably won't get the jokes. But if you've ever lived here, they are sadly hilarious. And that's all for this Sunday. I hope you are having a great weekend, free of vomit and full of delicious meals!

Oops, I did it again

Ta-da! Here it is: Turkey 2.0. My turkey roasting skills are obviously in high demand, because I got to do another one, this time for Lloyd's squadron Thanksgiving party. It was quite tender and delicious, because I roasted it upside down like my father told me to. He was quite cross because he didn't get any credit in the original turkey post, but here he gets his rightful due. The innards were thoughtfully removed for me this time, so there was no chance of a repeat of the giblet bag fiasco. And we can all be grateful for that on Thanksgiving, because those things are NASTY.

I know it doesn't look too good, but I had to carve it up and put it in a serving pan anyway, so nobody but you lucky Stories from Korea readers got to see it. Although, really, why are looks so important? Can't a turkey be good enough with what it has on the inside? I just think it's so unfair that the most attractive birds get the best parties, while the more homely ones get stuck with the second rate affairs. The pretty ones get all the perks: gracing the corner office instead of the dingy cubicle, going to the fancy Ivy League school instead of the broken down public university in Podunktown. And let's not even talk about the accessories. Why do they even make those frilly leg bloomers? Only about 2% of the turkey population could even hope to wear those. Why can't they make something an average bird can wear? I blame the media, like usual.

But not me! It's the insides that count, as long as the innards are gone, of course. I looked beyond the superficial appearance. I dug deeper and truly appreciated the gorgeous and Rubenesque inner beauty. And then I took the rest to the party.

Turkey

You probably haven't been thinking too much about turkey yet, but here in Korea, things are a little.... different.

This morning, I roasted the tenderest, juiciest turkey ever for a USO function. Not that I would know, of course, because it was for CHARITY and eating some would be like STEALING. That's what Lloyd says, anyway. I consider it more of a TAX, and a super reasonable one, not like those stupid vice taxes that are breaking my budget. After all, I am the one who had to get up in the middle of the night and slave over a hot oven push SEVERAL extra buttons on my oven control panel before I went to bed. To be totally fair, it's not as if we bought the turkey with the intent of donating 90% of it to the USO. Someone else bought it and Lloyd volunteered to cook it, but I still think a small fee, payable in delectable turkey bits, was in order.

Of course, the juicy goodness of the turkey was complete dumb luck, but I am fully prepared to modestly take credit for it: 'Oh, this old thing? It's just an secret old family recipe. I'm glad you like it.' But because Stories from Korea, like Fox News, is fair and balanced and 100% reliable all the time, here and here only, I'll spill the unvarnished truth. The turkey was wedged upside down in an undersized rusty thrift store roasting pan. I didn't cover it so the top was all crispy while the breast marinated in the juices in the bottom of the pan. We probably don't need to discuss the overlooked bag of innards. I even made my traditional holiday gravy. Or as my mother-in-law calls it, 'gravy-with-lumps'. That IS a secret family recipe, so don't even think about asking! I was feeling especially domestic and all festive-y and it would have been nice if Lloyd hadn't been so suspicious of me:

Me: Look, there's tons of juice. Do you think I should make some gravy?

Lloyd: For the USO, RIGHT?

Me: Ummm, yeah. Of course. Right, for the USO. Dammit!

So, as it turns out, I didn't get the first nibble of turkey or teeniest spoon of gravy. The USO even took the carcass! I wonder if Lloyd told them I wasn't to be trusted. That would be just like him. What is it they say? It's a foolish bird who fouls his own nest, or something like that?

Gobble, gobble, Lloyd!

Weekend Pictures

Here are some pictures from Buraksan State Park. The park is very close to Osan and great for hiking with woods and hilly paths, both paved and dirt. You can see the rice paddy behind the boys and in the close-up. I'm not sure what the red flower is but I hadn't seen it before, and it has an unusual appearance in that it resembles a freaky looking brain.

In other weekend news, I have cured Lloyd of one of his bad habits with a single tapping session. He gnaws on the inside of his cheeks and calls it 'chewing his sides'. Other members of his family do it, too, and he has been afflicted since he was a small child.

Now he's clean and healed up, but he says he doesn't believe in tapping. He thinks it's all in his mind and I could have tapped him anywhere with the same effect. I say, it doesn't matter if you believe in the tapping or not, because the tapping believes in YOU.

And of course, the ever-thrilling dinner report: flank steak sliced and served over pan grilled peppers, onions and fresh garden cilantro and parsley and sweet potato fries.

Food

I have been VERY diligent with my planned meals, my friends. I consult my planner every single day to see what is for dinner, but not everything is turning out quite like I pictured. This meal, for example, was supposed to be the grand-prize winning lime cilantro chicken.

The cilantro met a slimy and untimely demise in the refrigerator and I was only able to salvage a few leaves, so I chopped up some tomatoes and onions too and made more of a salsa-ish topping. I marinated the chicken in lime juice, olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper, then pan fried it and served it over rice with corn on the side. It was really quite delish, one of my better attempts so far.

The hardest part was finding a clean surface to take a picture on, and I have to say, it's a pretty sad day when the cleanest part of my kitchen is the floor. I see I could possibly have tried to find a plate with no chips in it, but the queen wasn't coming so I didn't bother. Tonight: turkey meatball soup in a rusty bowl.

Sort of

It's Sunday night. Sort of. Sunday night in Korea is late Saturday night/early Sunday morning in the states, and is thus very boring. Everything is closed, no one is on the computer to talk to. And to make matters worse, tomorrow is Monday, sort of. Monday morning here is Sunday afternoon there, and there is a total blackout all day. No new blog entries + quiet Facebook + no emails= AGONY.

I used a recipe for dinner. Sort of. I read this book, 'The Ungarnished Truth', by Ellie Mathews. She is a Seattle hippiegeek (new word; do you like it? I'm aware that individual people have already used it, but I'm using it to sterotype an entire group of people. I'm still toying with the capitalization issue; I'll keep you posted), who won the Pillsbury Bake-off for her recipe for salsa couscous chicken a few years ago. I had to make a few substitutions, of course. There is no way on God's green earth you would find currants at the commissary, so I had to use chopped up apricots instead. There is, however, plenty of soy sauce, Crisco and Count Chocula, should you want to whip up something scrumptious with those.

On the topic of the commissary, which we were, sort of, I found the commissary more appalling than usual today. Right in the front where you walk in, where you would expect to find the ads posted in a normal store, was a display titled 'Gender Report'. It was exactly what it sounds like- a report listing elementary school students by classroom and gender. Also a perfect pedophile's shopping list but no one asked me. I am reminded every single day that no one has any privacy here: you can't even have a few beers too many and throw up on the sidewalk without someone making a big deal about it; you have to have your ID scanned at the BX to buy Oxi-clean and Maalox; and when your new stripper pole comes in the mail everyone knows about it. I can live with those things, sort of, but if my kid's name was on the 'Gender Report' posted at the commissary I would be beyond furious. Not that anyone cares.

I'm ready to start a new week. Sort of. We are leaving here soon, sort of, and the weeks are going slowly now and my energy and enthusiasm are waning. There are never enough books, enough time, but always too much laundry, too many eggs mashed into the carpet and too much noise. I want to write, sort of. There are lots of ideas, but never enough time and always too much noise. I can ignore the laundry, sort of, so here you go: I updated my blog. Sort of.