How To Make Gimbap: Korean Seaweed and Rice Rolls

Since my daughter is taking Korean Language lessons we were assigned a Saturday to bring the snack for the class.  Turns out everyone would bring kim bap.  I've made it in the past, but I had never followed any recipe.

Anyway, I decided to find a good recipe and chose this one.  And it turned out pretty nice.  The good news is, if you can't find the ingredients, such as the pickled radish or the roll mat, you can order them over the internet.



I had a little trouble rolling the kim bap.  But it all worked out in the end.

Pumpkin Pot Success!!

The Pumpkin Pot recipe was a success!  I decided to cut the top farther down on the pumpkin so that the opening wouldn't be so narrow.  The fallout from that was the pumpkin wouldn't quite fit in the pan anymore.

So, here're the results:

Liverpool Street Station

We waited here for the train to Cambridge.

British Newspapers at convenience stores

Well, I thought this was really sad.

McSwap Southwestern Salad Dressing

I hated it when McDonalds discontinued the Southwest Salad.  The chicken was deliscious, the dressing very, very good. Luckily, there are a number of people, who almost certainly have a better tongue for what's in these various McDs sauces and such, than I do.

I picked up some preseasoned/cooked chicken and heated it up.  This last time I also picked up some canned corn and canned black beans.  Winn Dixie carries an assortmant of totilla chip garnishes for salads.  So, altogether it all came together with the salad dressing binding it all together.  WOrked great!

No, that's not an oven

When searching for an apartment you have to decide what is important to you.  Is an oven important?  For most Americans and Europeans, the answer is yes.  For Koreans, not so much.  It's very common not to find ovens in apartments. When this happens you have to go buy a toaster oven.

At first glance what appears to be an oven, turned out not to be so.

It's a dishwasher...

Bread in Seoul

Well, I don't really like to criticize a city I lived in.  Especially a city like Seoul.  It is a GREAT city.  But the people's tastes are still pretty basic.  That is changing and will not be static.  So, whatever I say here most likely will change within the next few years.

But I was surprised and maybe a little dismayed with I saw Roman Meal Bread being sold at the huge Lotte Mart.

Maybe a better word for the change in tastes is "evolution".  But there are bumps along the road that I was not fortunate to have to witness. For instance, there is a coffee shop in Seoul called Coffine Garunaru.  They sell a....dessert (?) or thing you eat with coffee.  It's a large slice, or slices of square bread with toppings of various sorts.  It is large.  I could barely eat all of one.

To be honest, I wasn't impressed - it was ok. I mean, come on.  Bread?  What's up with that?

Here is a copy of a photo from the linked website of what one looks like:

The good news is, tastes in Seoul are changing for the better.  I'll dig up some photos to show this.