Baking Without Oven

Nowadays, there are houses that equipped with ovens, but the buildings that built 10 years ago, don’t have ovens. It is because of Korean staple diet-Koreans usually have rice for their meals, not bread. If they want to have bread, they go to bakery, so oven wasn’t necessary to Koreans. However, appear of people who enjoy baking made the situation changed. Need of oven rose. Thus, buildings newly built usually have ovens basically.

Sadly, I don’t have oven in my house, even a mini oven for toasts! I am a person who prefers to eat bread than rice and enjoys baking, so it is very hard environment for me when I want to bake something. Plus, recently my sister brings fresh bread from her baking class. Whenever I taste those delicious cookies and cakes, I crave for baking cookies and wish I could have an oven.

Fortunately for those people who want to bake without oven, there are books introducing “No oven baking”. Though I can’t bake roll cakes, there are plenty of deserts, which are able to bake with frying pans, rice cookers, and refrigerators.

When I discovered “No oven baking” books and internet sites, I baked almost every day. In fact, I ‘conquered’ every recipe. I baked various flavored and shaped cookies, chocolate scones, and brownie with frying pans, mocha cake with rice cookers, rare cheese cake, pudding, and sweet jelly of autumn squash (autumn squash Yang-gang) with refrigerator.

After I tried every recipe in which I interested, I felt bored. Of course, even though there were various sorts of deserts, the kinds of bread are limited when it comes to “no oven baking”. I can’t bake roll cakes, chiffon cakes or other kinds of bread…or even a loaf of plain bread or bagel without oven. Though it is fun to bake cookies with frying pan, it takes long time and effort, because I should bake them with very low temperature and flip them very frequently. I wish I have a nice oven.

7 Days of Dad and Daughter

Usually I don't watch soap operas that much, but I would like to recommend you one, which I recently watched. It is a Japanese soap opera that is called 7 Days of Dad and Daughter(パパとムスメの7日間)

It has a common material that a man and a woman's souls switch into each other's body accidently (Actually, there is a Korean soap drama has the material, also. It is very common and fantasy-like material.). There are tons of similar concepted works that make you feel like it is a sort of cliche and in many films or sitcoms, souls of young woman and man switched and they falling in love eventually, but not this one.
A girl and her father's souls switch! Just imagine that a 40 or 50 year-old-man is acting and speaking like a teenage girl! Actually, I began to watch this soap opera because of that, expecting it would be very funny and considering it as a time killer, and "it is" entertaining.

I can't tell the whole plot, because I afraid of it could be a spoiler, but it is a story about a generation gap and lack of communication between parents (especially with dad, in this film) and process of understanding each other by putting themselves in each other's shoes-literally- in humorous and through dramatic episodes. Plus, there are unbelievably close discribtion of difficulties being salery man and high school girl, as if the author (this film's concept and plot is based on a Japanese novel) became both salery man and a high schooler.

 Because it is a Japanese soap opera, as I mentioned, it is very touching and will give you a lesson (Japanese soap operas like to give lessons, somehow) about family's relationship and its importance. Plus, I recommend you also because it has only seven episodes, because their souls remains to be switched only 7 days and each episode is for 1 day, and it means this soap opera is not lengthy like others, like The Big Bang Theory.

Parent's Day

I know that there are days to honor our parents in American culture and they are mother’s day and father’s day. In Korea, there is a parent’s day. It is a day like combined mother’s day and father’s day. It is on May 8 every year. I don’t know whether Americans give carnations to their parents, but I certainly know that we do. We can give it as bouquet of real flower contained in basket, or corsage, which is made with colored paper. I don’t know why, but we usually give our parents red carnations. We also give hand-written letters to express our feeling of thank and respect. Though parent’s day is not national holiday or something, it is an important day to parents and their children.

However, now parents became to expect nothing in parents day. No, I should say that parent’s day ‘was’ an important day, because nowadays value of parents are lowered in Korean society. Many parents are devoting or sacrificing themselves to raise their children, but I think many of their children are taking that for granted and don’t respecting their parents anymore.

I can barely see people who are trying to do something to celebrate parent’s day these days. Of course, there are plenty of children caring of parent’s day, especially elementary school students. It is not because they are respecting their parents specially, but because it is their homework. They make corsages, write letters, and make coupons (they are free coupons saying that if their parents give them those coupons, they will do chores or massage their parent’s shoulder and back.) during the art classes.

After I realized the reality, I was sad when I became to think of my attitude to parent’s day. I didn’t anything to celebrate parent’s day, too. Somehow, my parents don’t like to have letters and real carnations. They say that letters are too formal and real carnations get wither and finally die so they should throw them out soon. They are expecting us to do chores, or give them little gift. We have been having a whole new parent’s day tradition! Last parent’s day, I gave them 3 pairs of socks and one year before the day, I gave them underwear, and one year before the day…etc. I hate to explain myself, but I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT SHOULD I GIVE THEM with little money! In addition, their birthdays are in May, too, so, I decided to do the dishes as usual and give them wonderful birthday presents in their birthday. And I felt sad again because I was justifying my ill-treatment to my parents in parent’s day, doing nothing in this special day! I wish I could afford to whatever they want to have. And of course, I wish my parents notice that I’m not disrespecting them.

I Hate My Brother!

I have a thirteen-year-old brother who sometimes makes matters grow bigger. “I will have a bazaar in my next class,” said my brother. I was quiet and wondered why he is informing to me. Am I going to be involved? I became defensive. “I want to have my shop “Handmade” and I will sell things that I made by myself, and I want to sell cookies. But I don’t know how to bake cookies.” Here we go again. He wants me to help him AGAIN! I didn’t want to be involved in crazy situation so I said “no”, but he didn’t give up. He started to whine in his goose honking voice (his voice is recently breaking) and I couldn’t bear it, so I ordered him in serious tone in little bit annoyed, “Go and buy thy ingredients”. He immediately ran out to buy ingredients joyfully.

We started to make butter cookie dough. We just followed recipe and measured ingredients so it wasn’t hard. No, I should say ‘I finished’ making cookie dough, since he was playing mobile phone game all the time. I wondered why he said ‘help me’ if he do anything. He should have said ‘please do it for me’ instead. Anyway, after he stamped cookie dough in round shape, I started to bake cookies. He wanted me to show how to bake, so I put on cookie dough on frying pan (since we don’t have oven, it is hard to bake cookies. That’s why I refused his request at first). I put a lid on frying pan and waited until it baked well. I showed him what is baked well and told him that since this frying pan can’t conduct heat evenly, you should pay attention to every cookie and flip them frequently.

I thought that my job is finished, but it wasn’t. He kept shouted “Sis! Help me out! I think it’s burnt! Check this out!” while I’m reading a book in my room. Then I read the book next to the frying pan and checked whether cookies are baked enough while he played mobile game. Though it is fun to bake cookies, I felt weird because it looked like as if he is totally making me to do his own job. Plus, the worse thing is, he just didn’t recognize it is cunning behavior, so I couldn’t scold him about that because he couldn’t understand what it means, then I pressed down my anger and tried to think ‘he is kid, you can’t be mad at kid, that’s immature behavior’. After that, he left mess that he made, so I should clean the kitchen. I know it is not a behavior of grown-up, but I hate my brother!

Spring Greens

   Do you ever feel sleepy even though you slept soundly last night, in spring?
Maybe spring fever causes someone becomes sleepy and in semi conscious condition(it is called "춘곤증" in Korean). Scientists researched that spring fever emerges because of the change of length of day and night. Night becomes shorter than winter, so it causes people feel sleepy in day time. However, those scientists who researched the reason, seems like didn't find the solution for spring fever.
  In Korea, many people suffer from listless feeling of spring fever, too, and Koreans have their own solution. We eat spring greens to get rid of those feelings.
  In spring, you can see many Koreans squatting on the road side and picking wild herbs. They are not playing house, are preparing side dishes.
  There are many wild herbs in Korea, everywhere. In spring, fresh green sprouts shoot up on the flowerbeds, on the road sides, on the mountain dirts...literally everywhere! We pick those sprouts and season them. Those seasoned vegetable are called "나물(Na-mul)" in Korean and seasoned vegetables usually have aromatic, bitter taste(especially when you taste 봄나물(seasoned spring greens) they'll taste bitter). Those bitter taste makes people feel awake and helps to get out of sleepy condition.
  Also I was dozing oftenly in class this spring, but after I eat sesoned spring greens, it seems like that they keep me up. Especially, eating seasoned ixeris dentata(씀바귀) in every meal really helped me. In Korean, ixeris dentata have a meaning of 'bitter' in its Korean name. I feel I'm adapting to changed day times and I'm wide awake!

memorial service and gangjeong

   Last Saturday, my family and relatives gathered to have memorial service. If I remember correct, this ritual takes place once in 6 months and because of this, we should prepare food like fruit, Korean vegetable pancake(jeon, in Korean.), and gangjeong, which is a snack I am currently into.

 (image of gangjeon. Its source is : http://terms.naver.com/entry.nhn?cid=200000000&docId=1086396&mobile&categoryId=200000399)

   Gangjeong is not a type of gang, of course, it is a kind of traditional crunchy snack of Korea. It is made up of starch syrup and fried sesame or seeds so it tastes sweet and aromatic. It is usually rectangle-shaped(some of it is round-shaped), colorful, and sticky. Plus, I can taste it only in traditional holiday, because most of stores do not sell it in common days.
  
   I felt regretful about this fact and thought that if supermarkets sold gangjeong commonly, I would buy it almost every day. However, it seems like it wouldn't be come true soon, so I tried searching the word "gangjeong" because of this regretful feeling. After I looked through the result of searching, I found a blog posting, which was saying 'how to make gangjeong'. I clicked it and read through the recipe. I was little bit surprised because it was easier than I expected. It looked like I could make it so easily and simply if I wanted to. Since its calories are quite high(I saw the information about calories under the recipe. How wicked!), I thought that I couldn't make it so often, but I was glad to have recipe. It means that I could have gangjeong if I have enough ingredients at any time. In addition, it is profane and immature to 'look forward to' memorial service to have gangjeong!

Consultants are all around me!

   

On Sundays, I usually go church in early afternoon and come back to home about time to have dinner. Although I don't look like Christian on weekdays (that's why I sometimes call myself 'Sunday Christian') I feel comfortable when I go to church. Of course I like to attend service and sing in the church choir, but my favorite time is after the service. After I attend service, I like to talk about my daily life on weekdays with church members. I can say something about my troubles and receive advises, or give advises to others. We talk about not only troubles, but also about good things happened before and appreciate those.

Today, I told to church members my anxious mind, which was caused by job seeking problem. Recently I’ve been feeling depressed because I became comparing others and me and realize that I am not good at anything when I was compared with others, especially in English. After I finished my word, everybody said something, and I can remember one comment. “Calm down, it is because you became 3^rd grade. It is natural that you have anxiety.” That didn’t help me to solve my problem, but I could feel very comforted. Spending time like this, I can get rid of depressing feeling and stress and know about other's daily life and learn to handle hard situations.

What I want to say is that whether you have religion or not, having friends or people who are close enough to you to talk about troublesome private issues is very helping when you have to handle tough situations or stresses. Plus, you can feel the feeling that you are cared by others by having times like this.