The Wonders of the Korean Market

It's been a while since we've been to the Korean market to get our staple Asian ingredients. The one we venture to is in Daly City. It is farther away from us that some other Asian markets, but it is along the way to visit my family.

First, pan chan, the assorted fermented and pickled side dishes at the Korean table, are found in vats and our bought by weight. B, my hubby, loves the shredded spicy cuttle fish and the black beans, while I usually go for the seaweed salad and pickled daikons and cucumbers. This time, I also picked up the fish cakes.


Strangely, we both dislike kim chee.

One thing to note about pan chan when dining at a Korean restaurant: If the pan chan at a restaurant does not taste good or if there isn't much variety, then you can forget about the restaurant because low quality side dishes reflects poorly on the restaurant.

And what is an Asian market without fresh meat? A huge part of any Asian market is the butchery. At this one, it pretty much takes up the whole back wall of the market. You can pick the cut of meat that you want or select your fish from the tank. At this one, they lay out whole fishes on beds of ice. Here is a monkfish:




Also, there is the rice. Here at the Korean market, there is an aisle dedicated to rice from sweet brown to a mix bag of varieties. Also, you can find tapioca pearls and dried beans. A whole new aisle is dedicated to noodles. There is the vermicelli that is made of mung beans (completely wheat free), the soba noodles, the rice noodles. the buckwheat noodles.... But we stick to our brown and white rice. (But $5.99 for a five pound bag of rice reflects the recent rise in cost for rice.)

And a favorite snack for both of us kim bop. Not to be mistaken for sushi. Rather than raw fish, there is usually egg or shredded beef.


And of course, an aisle for sweets: the pumpkin flavored chips, the red bean paste cakes, and the crunchy corn puffs. But my childhood favorite: Pocky, those chocolate covered cracker sticks. There were only two flavors of when I was a kid: chocolate and strawberry. Now there is a display of all of them by the register Men's Pocky? It's a dark chocolate one. I don't know what that is supposed to mean.

I was never into Korean food until we were married. My mother-in-law, makes the best Korean barbeque, kalbi, short ribs marinated in her own mixture of soy sauce, brown sugar, and other ingredients. . We probably bring back about fifty pounds of frozen marinated meat every time we visit. And it make a great excuse to invite people over for a barbeque.

The Sweetest Tomato

I am not much of a gardener. But, I am learning.

I was given a potted gerbera daisy one year for my birthday. I went out of town for a couple weeks and had forgotten to ask my roommate to water my flower. I returned home to a shriveled, dead plant. The poor thing baked in the summer sun.

Last year, I was again given a plant for my birthday: a tomato plant. I had named it Mater as in the character from the Pixar movie, Cars. ("As in 'Ta-Mater'...") Determined not to make the same mistake, I kept a close eye on it, making sure that it received some TLC. It had grown to be taller than me. Not bad for a cherry tomato plant. The best part was that it had tomatoes! Proof that I can do some gardening. So I made a second attempt this year: I picked up a beefsteak tomato plant, Mater 2. It has not grown very tall, but I am proud to say that it has produced fruit. At first, there was only one, and it grew big. But I think the best part was watching it change color. It started out green. Then, there would be a patch of light orange and, before you know it, it has become plump, juicy, and red.

I decided to eat the first fruit of my labor one night. My husband had decided to make an enchilada bake for dinner, so I chopped it up to garnish. It was the sweetest tomato I have tasted. I mean sweet like a fruit, though botanically speaking a tomato is a fruit.

I have five more little guys on their way. Hopefully they will be just as good.

The Second Attempt

Defeated.
That is how I felt when I left work today. I attempted to make my chocolate cherry ice cream again today since the previous batch was possibly contaminated by broken glass. I had just finished spinning it and had scooped them into the sundae glasses. There were about nine glasses on the half sheet pan. As I loaded them into the freezer, I missed the shelf and the glasses toppled onto the floor in a big old chocolate mess.

Gah! I felt so frustrated as all that hard work lay on the floor. It sounds silly, but I wanted to cry. You start to feel like: "Why did I bother to make it if this was going to happen?" I was tired and just wanted my day to end. I also was not looking forward to the clean up.

I will not be making ice cream at work for a while.

Too bad because it was really yummy ice cream.

The Incident

Today was going to be a normal day.

Or so I had thought.

My boss had bought a home brewing kit to make beer and had made it the day before. So I came in to work this morning with a ten gallon jug of homemade beer on my work station. The dark liquid churned as the top bubbled releasing the gas. I could see the yeast and the hops in the stormy stew.

Around 11 am, I decided to restock some of the banana bread by the register. I was placing the bread in the display basket when I heard a crash and the sound of what I had thought was breaking dishes. I glanced at the kitchen and saw everyone bolting to the pastry kitchen. At first, I thought that maybe some of my ramekins had been knocked over. But I saw someone grab a mop, and from the hot line I noticed that the giant glass jug was no longer where it had been. As I neared the pastry kitchen, I could smell that sour smell of yeast.

The jug had exploded and the whole floor was flooded in partially made beer. Shattered glass were what remained of the jug. We started to clean up and I was a bit disappointed at having to throw away the chocolate ice cream that I was so excited to finish making, but having glass in someone's meal was a lot worse. Everything was a mess. Glass and hops were found even at my boss desk, which was in the corner of the kitchen.

I examined my cooling rack and had noticed this one shard of glass. It was sharp and was curled. Then it dawned upon me that that shard could have hit me in the eye or severed an artery if I had not decided to step out of the kitchen when I did.

The jug, you see, was directly in front of me as I worked. It sat a little more than arms distance away from my usual spot. I was taken aback and had a hard time getting back into the groove. Especially with the thoughts that I could have been seriously hurt. I was grateful. I am still grateful nothing happened.

I told my boss: "No more home brewing for you."

"No," he replied, still suprised by the incident, "not even at home."

Feature Film: Stranger Than Fiction

I was pleasantly suprised at the film "Stranger Than Fiction." Will Ferrell plays Harold Crick, whose normal and boring life is thrown off course when he starts hearing a voice narrate the happenings of his daily life. I did not have high expectations of the film since I generally have not liked films that featured actors from "Saturday Night Live," though there are a few exceptions.

I think what I enjoyed the most was the fact that one of the characters was a baker and that another one was a writer. I get excited when I see things in films that I can personally relate to like career, locations, etc. I felt like I could relate to Ana Pascal, the Harvard Law student who dropped out of school to pursue a different passion. And though, I didn't drop out of college, I did leave behind my English degree to pursue my love for baking. I did cringe a bit when Ana threw a piece of dough at the wall in a fit of rage. I couldn't help but imagine the cost and labor that went down the drain. I am hoping that it was just a mound of leftover dough that could no longer be rerolled. (Note: Most cookie doughs can only be rolled out once or twice. Anymore than that and the cookies become tough.)

It was really nice to see a character on film do pastry because she loved it. Because it is not the pay, the schedule, or the (lack of) benefits that keep a person cooking all day. I feel that if you want to do well with what you do, a part of you has to at least enjoy it if not love it.

Another notable food film with an SNL actor is "Spanglish" where Adam Sandler plays a head chef at a restaurant.

I must say, though, I did find myself looking carefully at kitchens in these films to see how accurate they were.

Hot Hot Heat

Summer is here...even before the official date. People are out and about in flip-flops with some sort of cold beverage in hand. Fans and air conditioner are working full blast.

And it gets even hotter in the kitchen. I have spent enough summers in restaurant kitchens to dread the hot weather. It is nice if you are sitting outside for an evening meal. But, you will have your endurance and tolerance tested in the kitchen with the temperature rising outside. I am fortunate to be in the pastry kitchen, but the hot line has the stove, the grill and the oven, all sources that adds to the heat.

Twice this year, we have had one of the freezers break on a hot day. The first time around was the pastry freezer. Fortunately, my boss was at work earlier than me that day and discovered it in time to save my precious product.

I think the worst, though, was a few years ago when I was at the Slanted Door. Sure, the dining area was pleasantly air conditioned, but, man, was it hot the second you stepped into the kitchen. The plating station was worse with the fryer behind you. Occasionally, you would find someone taking their time in the walk-in, taking advantage of the few moments of cool air.

There is nothing like feeling like constantly being inside a hot cloud, beads of sweat on your brow, your shirt sticking to your back, trying to pin out pie dough.

I am hoping that this is a just a heat wave, but with global warming, that may not be so.

Mmmm...Egg Cream

I was having a conversation with one of the managers at the restaurant, and we came across the subject of ice cream. With the weather warming up, there has been an increase in requests for ice cream desserts. We have Ciao Bella gelato, but it seems that there is a demand for something with ice cream in it rather than just ice cream itself.

So I thought about what would be something easy we could do with ice cream. We would need something easy that the servers could put together on my days off.

I found two recipes for egg cream. One in the Scharffen Berger Cookbook and the other in Alice Medrich's "Bittersweet." Egg cream is a New York classic and is pretty much a chocolate soda. How it got the name egg cream I don't know since it does not necessarily have eggs or cream in it.

So I experimented with it for the first time today. I took some chocolate syrup from the coffee bar and some half and half. I stirred it well and then poured soda water from the soda dispenser.

But then, I decided to go an extra step and add a scoop of chocolate gelato. I was quite delighted with it and felt like a kid as I sipped the egg cream, making sure that I got a bit of gelato.

Here is the general recipe for egg cream. You can change it according to your taste.

1 part chocolate syrup (store bought works fine)
1 part half and half, or milk
4 parts soda water