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.