Korean BBQ

Honestly, who can resist Korean barbecue, the sizzling of the meat grilling on the table is almost music to people’s ears. Not many people can resist the sweet, spicy, and salty flavors of the marinated meat. Of course, others might love the thin slices of the non-marinated meat dishes. Korean barbecue often consists of thin slices of beef, pork, and chicken. Along with the meat, it comes along with lettuce leaves that you wrap the meat in with a spicy scallion salad and a spicy paste called ssamjang to make a “Korean burrito”, and small plates of side dishes known as banchan. Korean BBQ is mostly served family style so it is always fun to go in a big group. Korean barbecue is currently growing popularity and is often enjoyed by not just among Korean consumers, but internationally.

Why am I writing about Korean BBQ? In my family, we go out to eat Korean BBQ usually on special occasions, such as birthdays or when all of our family from Spokane comes to visit. The thought of Korean barbecue excites my family especially since we have big eaters and we usually go to a buffet style restaurant that has tons of choices that ranges from marinated to non-marinated beef, chicken, pork, and seafood. It is the type of food that brings the family together and it is something we like to share. To me, it brings a lot of memories of my family and friends eating together to celebrate some special event such as a birthday, graduating from high school, going away to college, or simply to have a farewell dinner. Just recently, in the past 2 weeks, I had had Korean barbecue with my friends twice, once to celebrate all of our birthdays together since one of our friend was leaving for school to the east coast, and the other with a different group of friends because we haven't seen each other for a long time. The third time was actually tonight to celebrate my mom's birthday!

Overall, Korean barbecue, to me, is the type of food that just brings everyone together. Most importantly, it creates and deepens the social connection I have with my family and friends.

*What Do We Eat?*

Michael Pollan's, The Omnivore's Dilemma explores and answers the "What should we have for dinner?" Despite being assigned this book, I actually enjoyed it immensely. At parts of the book it actually scared me. The first part of this book is entirely about corn, that is 123 pages just about corn. According to the book, the industrial food chain is largely made up of corn "whether it is eaten directly, fed to livestock, or processed into chemicals such as glucose and ethanol."As stated in the book, many industrial food company and farms feed livestock grains and corn which most animals are not meant to eat, the protein given to the animals make the animals bigger in short amount of time in time of slaughter.

In the documentary, The Future Of Foods and in the book by Ozeki, All Over Creation, most food have products of genetically engineered food which can have small traces harmful toxins. Even food that claims to be "organic" might still have traces of chemical substances. Disturbingly, as shown in the documentary, patenting life is now permitted, however no labeling of genetically modified organisms in food is required. Knowing this, it is hard not to be scared about what we are eating, as stated before, no labeling is required. This holds up the question, what do we eat? What can we eat? Of course, the most obvious answer could be organic and as stated by the book In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan, "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." Unfortunately, not everybody enjoys eating just vegetables and organic produce is expensive compared to industrial food. Food from stores like Trader Joe's or Whole Foods that are "organic" will be more expensive compared to foods in Safeway or Walmart. While I have yet to visit the U-district farmer's market, I have been told that it is not cheap, which I can agree with since the farmer's market back at home in Federal Way was not cheap either. All in all, while I am aware of how our food production is not exactly "pure", I know that there really isn't much I can do about it. While I can start eating organic and start buying food from Trader Joe's or the local farmer's market, I don't have the funds to start buying organic produce. It would also cut out conveniance, which I do love. I do however, hope that in the future, that our food situation will get better.

Food Memories

Couple days ago, my class was discussing food memories. Students were sharing stories about how certain foods made them nostalgic, for example one girl was sharing a story that gave reason to her hate of mushrooms, apparently during her childhood, she was forced to eat spoiled mushrooms in which resulted in her hatred of mushrooms. Many other students talked about how a smell or taste of a certain food gave off nostalgic feelings such as a pumpkin spiced latte giving off nostalgic memories about Thanksgiving. While other students were continuing in giving their own little examples and stories, I tried to think of any food that would evoke my own personal memories. Unfortunately, I could not really think of any foods that would evoke any memories, good or bad.

It's been a couple days ever since that conversation and now I have thought of my own little food memory. My brother loves to cook, in fact, he used to be a chef. However, while he is not a chef as of this moment for his own personal reasons, he still has plans to open up his own restaurant and bar. One thing I loved most were the food that my brother would make for the family. Some of the food that he would make often were steaks, crème brûlée, banana bread, minestrone, and ice cream. Out of everything that he would make for us, the one I loved the most was banana bread. My brother's banana bread was always really moist and sweet, something that for some reason I cannot replicate. While I can make pretty good banana bread, it can never taste the same as my brother's. So, everytime I eat banana bread, I always think of the times that my brother would bake a loaf for his family.

I realized that I was always highly influenced by my brother, as I child, I would always follow my brother and try to be included in his activities. Now that I'm older, I realized that I am pretty similar to him, I have developed similar hobbies as him. While I do not intend on ever becoming a chef, I enjoy cooking and I am sure it is all due to my brother's influence.

Dumpster Diving

A couple days ago, I have learned about the importance of dumpster diving in class. Before, I have never really thought about digging in a dumpster for food. Doing a little research, I have learned that dumpster diving has gotten very popular, and is "considered a great resource by many people" as stated by www.allthingsfrugal.com. From both this website and from our guest speaker David Giles, I have learned that we live in a time of excess and waste, and that we should not look down on those who find a way to use that "waste".

I have never gone dumpster diving and I have never had the urge to go jumping into dumpsters either. The idea of dumpster diving had always disgusted me, however, after learning about how approximately 20% of the world's food produced end up in the dumpster, I started feeling wasteful. David Giles's speech has motivated me into trying to avoid wasting food. In my mind, I have always wanted to give food out to the homeless but I have never actually done it, knowing that perfectly good food goes into the waste I have realized the importance of soup kitchens and overall the action of dumpster diving.

Kimchi

Kimchi, Korea's best known food. It is known for being very nutritious with a unique taste. It is served at almost every meal and few people can go without it before they get cravings. Ever since I was a child, I have always watched my mom our kimchi. My mom's homemade kimchi is to me, the very best kimchi. Store bought kimchi and restaurant served kimchi will always be inferior. For me, I am one of those people who gets cravings for kimchi frequently, now that I am living in the dorms, I get huge cravings. Unfortunatley, kimchi does not smell very pleasant and bringing it to a dorm will most certainly bring complaints, especially from my roommates. Due to this, I look forward to going home just because I want my kimchi and rice.

As a kid, eating kimchi has made me love almost every kinds of food. Kimchi is the main reason why I have a very open diet. My love for kimchi has made me love almost all vegetables, there are very few vegetables that I do not like, a big reason is because there are over 100 varieties of kimchi. Kimchi can be made out of almost every vegetables and while I have obviously not eaten every variety of kimchi, I have still consumed an abundant amount in my life.

Kimchi is not just a Korean favorite too, kimchi has been gradually catching the interest of many foreigners. Many enjoy the health benefits or just enjoy the unique taste. Online, there are many fan websites about kimchi with thousands of members. Either way, kimchi is slowly growing popularity in other countries besides Korea. While it is an acquired taste, those who start eating it will start loving it and will be rewarded from its many health benefits.

*Ramen*

Everybody eats it, everybody loves it, and it is the fastest and easiest thing to make. You often hear people talk about how they start living off of ramen due to the cheap price and the convenience. In fact, it can be called the perfect dorm food. Now that I have started college and started living in a dorm, I feel that ramen will be a staple in my diet. While it is hardly considered health food, it serves it's purpose and fills me up. Whether it is the instant cup variation or the one that is cooked in a pan, each will only take about 5 minutes to cook, which sure beats Rachael Ray's, 30 Minute Meals.

As a kid, I often indulged in ramen noodles. My favorite kind has always been the Asian variety, more specifically, Shin Ramen. Fortunately, there are many different flavors of ramen noodle so everybody can find a favorite. Along with flavor, there are hundreds of different ways to prepare it and to customize it, everybody has a favorite way to eat their ramen. Some people might enjoy adding an egg or some vegetables, I know several people that enjoy adding American cheese. Either way, ramen is enjoyed by many people, but it seems especially important to college students since most don't have money to spend on for food.
Just in case, here are directions for ramen:

Ingredients
Water
1 package ramen

Optional
1 egg

Directions
Bring water to boil in a pot, when the water starts boiling, add the noodles and the veggies that come with it. After about 2 minutes, add the soup base. Then add the optional egg and cook for another minute. Voila! The ramen is done, after eating the noodles you can add rice and