Good News, Bad News, Annoying

We finally went down to the cell phone store to look into getting a cell phone for Haley. Since I already have a plan, and Haley is under 13, they have a special deal. For only 10,000 ₩ a month (less than $10), Haley would get unlimited incoming calls, 300 minutes to call me, and 66 minutes to call anyone else (her friends). When the minutes are gone, they're gone, so she can't rack up a big phone bill. Crazy awesome, right?! That's the good news. The bad news is that in order to get the family plan, we have to prove that we're family. Having the same last name and looking alike isn't enough (there are only a few family names in Korea, and all waygookin look alike), nor are my guardianship papers. So we have to go to the immigration office and get the official Certificate of Family. Which will probably be a good thing to have, but I wish I'd heard about it earlier (this summer, for example, when I had to be at the immigration office anyhow). The Immigration Office, being a government office, is only open from 9am to 4pm. Nor are they open on holidays. So Haley's cell phone will have to wait until spring break, which is only 2 weeks off. The annoying? That would be the explicit, non-refundable foreigner fee we have to pay to get a cell phone. The idea is that they pool those fees to pay the cell phone bills of those foreigners who skip out on their bills. One the one hand, I guess it makes sense... On the other hand, it's pretty prejudiced :( Still, even with the fee, it's a better deal than I've ever heard of for a kid's cell phone :)

European Home Ec.

I have two tricks that I've picked up in the last couple of years that are super awesome and I wish I'd learned them earlier!

1.     Duvet + Duvet cover rather than flat sheet + blankets. Holy smokes!!!

Time to wash my sheets? Wash the pillowcases, fitted sheet, and duvet cover. The comforter stays clean because it's wrapped in the duvet cover, safe from dirt. Before, when I had a flat sheet and blankets, I washed the sheets every week or two but the blankets? Maybe twice a year. And since sometimes I'd kick the flat sheet to the foot of the bed and wake up wrapped in my blankets... Yeah, now that I think about it that's kinda gross. The duvet cover is like a giant pillowcase, so you can't kick it off without losing the whole duvet. There's a trick to putting it back on quickly and easily: wash the duvet cover inside out. Then you stick your arms inside the bottom opening of the duvet cover and grab the top corners with your hands. Then just shake the duvet cover down over the duvet :)

Time to make the bed in the morning? Nothing simpler! Throw the pillow to the top of the bed from where ever it's migrated to. Grab the duvet. Shake it a couple of times and then throw it onto the bed. Elapsed time: 30 seconds :)

2.     Measure by weight rather than volume when cooking. 

This is amazing. Get a digital kitchen scale. They cost about $30, and are *totally worth it*. Put your mixing bowl on the scale, and turn it on. The scale will ignore the bowl and read 0. Add your ingredients by weight (you can google how much a cup of something should weigh, or just measure it one last time and weigh it), and zero the scale between ingredients. You don't have to use measuring cups, so there are fewer dishes. You don't have to worry about whether your flour is properly sifted or your brown sugar is properly packed. Recipes are much more consistant, and did I mention the part about fewer dishes??? 

Night Owls

Last night I got the urge to make chocolate chip cookies. I had the flour all measured out and the butter melting on the stove when I realized that I didn't have enough eggs. Aarrrgh! So I set out to see if the corner store was open to pick up some eggs. Open? Yes. Eggs? No. But the bigger store two doors down was *also* open. At 11:30PM. *grin*

Cellier des Dauphins

Upshot: meh...

Cost: less than $10

Notes: major points for being a *grape* wine, but definitely not a fantastic one. Kinda sour, kinda thin. However, better than several I've had in the last few
Months, and cheaper. Overall, an ok cheap wine, but not something I would serve to guests.

Location:Jwa-dong,Busan,South Korea

My Bed

I was remaking my bed this morning after changing my sheets (juggling laundry when everything has to hang dry in the winter is an adventure) when I realized I'd never posted any pics of my fitted sheets that I made. Well, actually, I never finished them, so I have really big flat sheets that I tuck under all the way around. They work just fine, and look fairly snazzy :) Here's the purple set; next time I change my sheets I'll try to post a photo of the blue set (don't hold your breath; winter has me on a much longer sheet-changing cycle).

Location:Jwa 3(sam)-dong,Busan,South Korea

Geoge Island

Today Haley and I took the subway halfway across town to meet up with the family of a couple of my students. They're originally from Poland and have been here for seven years. They have a car, so are able to travel places that can't be reached by public transit. We all piled in, including the dog, and drove forever to get to a place called Geoge Island, to the southeast of Busan.

The land around there has lots of waterways, so first we drive over a few bridges. However, instead of a bridge one section has a tunnel; a concrete tube lying on the floor of the bay. My photos didn't turn out; one tunnel looks the same as another :p



The big attraction of the island was walking the dog on the beach; it's deserted enough to let him off the leash for a while.




Korean beaches aren't very warm in February though, so we didn't stay more than an hour. Then we went out to lunch at some all-you-can-eat place where you pick out raw meat from a buffet and bring it back to the table to fry there. It was pretty good; Haley and I both ate a lot of meat :) Then back to town, where they showed me some good places to shop, including the "secret" bakers supply stores :) After parting from them, we hopped onto the subway to get as close to Costco as we could before taking a taxi the rest of the way. Hundreds of dollars later, we took a taxi home and put away our groceries. Dinner tonight? Brie and donuts! Super healthy :)

Deviled Eggs and Strawberry Pie

This weekend I made deviled eggs and strawberry pie. The deviled eggs turned out great. I used lemon juice instead of the vinegar and I like it so well I think I'll use lemon juice from now on. Here's the original recipe:

Deviled Eggs

Servings: 12

Ingredients:

6 eggs
1/4 cup mayonnaise (1.8 oz, 51 g)
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
1/2 teaspoon yellow mustard (.07 oz, 2 g)
1/8 teaspoon salt
paprika

Directions:

Put eggs into a pot of cold water and bring to a boil. Let boil for one minute, then cover tightly, remove from heat, and let sit for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, use cold water to chill the eggs as quickly as possible, to avoid a green ring.

Halve hard-cooked eggs lengthwise; remove yolks and mash. Use back of spoon to completely pulverize chunks. Add mayo, mustard, salt, and vinegar and mix. Hand mixer may be necessary for double batch. Refill whites with yolk mixture; sprinkle paprika on top to taste.

Hint: if you're taking your deviled eggs to a potluck, put the filling into a Ziploc bag. When you get there, cut the corner off of the bag and use it to pipe the filling into the eggs (like frosting).

Source: Better Homes & Gardens; alterations by Marilynn and Meg Claypool.

My strawberry pie was less successful. The crust turned out great, but the filling was not so excellent. My crust recipe is here:

http://mobile.seriouseats.com/recipes/2011/07/easy-pie-dough-recipe.html

It's by another of those fantastic "cooking as science" not just art chefs I love. He has an article about why the crust works the way it does here:

http://mobile.sweets.seriouseats.com/2011/07/the-food-lab-the-science-of-pie-how-to-make-pie-crust-easy-recipe.html

I think I may have mentioned this recipe before, but it's so awesome that it bears repeating :)

Now I have to go score about a million midterm exams in time to turn in grades in two days :p

Holy crap, it's cold!

Walking to school this morning, we agreed it was pretty damn cold. Haley said it was below freezing, but I disagreed... Turns out she was right. It's about 15˚F outside right now!!! This is definitely the coldest weather I've ever been in. My face hurts, my nose runs, my eyes water... Still way better than the summer though. I think I'll go buy us some scarves this weekend :)