I’m pleased to share with you the completion of a project that has been in the works for years. We had a number of starts and stops: a co-editor dropped out, I moved twice, a parent got ill, we squabbled, but Hyde and I along with our fellow bloggers made it to the finish line. Germany …
The children’s writer in me is back. It seems that the training I did for National Blog Post Month (NaBloPoMo) paid off in the sense that I could hit the ground running for Picture Book Idea Month (PiBoIdMo). Flexing my writing muscles during NaBloPoMo got me fit. More importantly, I also made a few personal …
My kids are 100% ethnically Korean and look it. When they speak though, they sound like they are either American or German kids. They never sound like Korean kids. As I’ve mentioned before, they might eat like or want to eat like Korean kids, but they only know a small handful of words in Korean: …
The year of the horse has just begun! Perhaps you bowed deeply to your elders and got an envelope full of some cash in return along with words of wisdom, aspirations and wishes for your new year. If you gave the cash, take pride in reaching a milestone of success and adulthood. I hope the …
When children are sick, it derails your life. A couple weeks ago, my younger two children both had fever, a bad cough (the kind that keeps you up at night), and a runny nose. I spent most days lugging around eleven kilos either on my left hip or in front of my chest. We call …
So I teased you in my previous post about my kimchi boggeum or fried kimchi. I usually make it with pork neck (Schweinehals) from my butcher, but as I was buying vegetables this week at the Demeter (biodynamic) stand at the Farmer’s Market this week, I saw these perfect mushrooms in front of me. I …
I never thought I would ever make kimchi from scratch. I never thought I would have to. I was a girl in love with the big city, and I was certain that in any of those big cities would also be a Korean market with fresh kimchi to buy. Fate laughingly sent me to rural …
I love kong-namul (soy bean sprouts). (And I swear. On my list of blog resolutions is to figure out how to use hangeul since this romanisation business is driving me a bit nuts. I managed to do it on my iPhone and download Kakao Talk, so there’s hope for me yet.) But speaking of driving … Continue reading
I get asked all the time if I can recommend any Korean restaurants in the area, especially whenever I meet fellow Americans. In addition to our one and only local restaurant here in Essen, Sarangbang, I recommend several in Düsseldorf. Continue reading
As I was stuffing the kimchi we got from Korea restaurant in Düsseldorf in my giant American kimchi jar (N.B. when storing, you have to pack kimchi tightly and eliminate any air pockets for optimal preservation and leave space for expansion during the fermentation process), I was thinking of all the great things I could … Continue reading
Oh my gawd, you guys. Where has this “Korean Restaurant Guide 2012 Germany” been hiding from me for the last two years? I guess this is what happens when you live in the sticks. I picked this up at Korea in Düsseldorf. You can also download it as an app. This is like having a … Continue reading
Full of digressions, this post meanders through all of the short journeys I took going through an old box of papers. In a sense, this is also the prequel of expatkimchi. I finally went through an old file box that my parents had driven all the way from Pennsylvania to California while my family and … Continue reading
There are many Korean restaurants in Düsseldorf. My intention was to do a round up of the ones I’ve been to so far as well as the grocery stores. I’ll still do that, but I wanted to feature one in particular. Last week we invited my father-in-law from Mönchengladbach to meet us in Düsseldorf last Sunday … Continue reading
I wrote this post yesterday for the German Way blog on why Americans should consider pursuing a BA in Germany for free and perhaps why not. Continue reading
Today, we received our first loaf of bread and pack of salt, the typical German housewarming gift, for this new home in Essen. My neighbour C came over for coffee this morning and surprised me with this fresh-from-the-oven braided bundle of yeast, flour, milk and sugar. I’m in the process of researching the origins of … Continue reading
I had a productive day yesterday of clearing out the moving boxes from my office, firing off a bunch of emails, spending time with relatively cooperative children, and completing my intended blog post by my planned deadline. In contrast, today has been one of those days when I didn’t feel like I moved forward at … Continue reading
Here are the promised photos of my new kitchen. Everyone loves a good before and after story. No more telling. I’m all showing! Isn’t this great? This is what we started with. A pretty traditional 60s style kitchen that wasn’t terribly small, but it was a closed off room. Again, typical for back then. Modern … Continue reading
