food

I have about a half an hour left here at school and I just want to devote one post to food. I've been pretty good about adapting to Korean food, and I've taken a little pride in the fact that I haven't fallen back on McDonald's or KFC or anything like that (okay, except that one time at the airport with Burger King when I was in a hurry and a bad mood). I can count on one hand the number of times I've eaten Western food in a restaurant in Korea, and I can count on the knuckles of one finger the number of times I've eaten non-Korean food for breakfast, lunch or dinner because I was just craving it or was completely unappetized by Korean food. I actually have sort of wished that I would be pushed to that point more often so that I could justify visiting Popeyes or whatever, but I've always managed fine. I really like Korean food these days. I even like stuff that's kind of weird, like dried squid, and things that used to gross me out, like fish from the cafeteria that's been cooked with all it's skin and bones and is kind of difficult to separate out, so you just eat the skin and fins and stuff. I actually look forward to that fish now. We had it today for lunch and I was excited. And have I mentioned that I love kimchi? I really love it. I really didn't like it too much when I first got here. But I love it now, especially the really spicy kimchi that's just a bit salty. That stuff is great.

Anyway, so I'm ranting now because I've been craving non-Korean food more these past couple days, and this afternoon is worse because I'm pretty hungry and I just got out of a discussion practice session with the three girls who are going on to the provincial competition and the last thing we talked about was what snacks I like. And I started thinking about cheese and crackers. I've had cheese that wasn't American cheese or pizza cheese once this year, and that was back in November when we had Thanksgiving dinner at the Ambassador's house. Oh, and I had this kind of Camerbert cheese sandwich once at a deli in Tokyo in Feb. So I'm thinking about cheese, and good cheeseburgers, and good Mexican food, like I would love a nice, greasy carnitas taco right now (with or without cheese). I would even love some decent pizza. There's plenty of pizza in Korea, but the kind of host family always orders is sort of limp and uninspired and always (too often) has corn and potatoes as toppings. Pepperoni doesn't seem to exist in this country. Wednesday night, at SOS, while I was volunteering, one of my students walked in with a slice of pizza and sort of shoved it in my face backwards so I could have a bite. And I got sort of excited because it had a good, sturdy blanket of cheese on it and I thought I even saw a black olive. The bite I took was from the untouched crust but I appreciated it. I would love a good slice of pizza from back home, nothing that special, something with a lot of classic toppings and a nice slightly chewy crust. Ah, man. Okay, I think I'm done.

Sorry for that scary show. Especially to any fellow ETAs reading. Once I eat dinner I'll feel better. I'll sit down to some bulgogi and forget all about it.