Korean Yumminess!

For those of you who don't know, I'm part Korean - in my head that is! I worked at a Tae Kwon Do school for 4 years as the only American. I was immersed by Korean culture, people, language, food, and even their traditional dancing! (Crazy...I know) To this day, I am still really good friends with all of them and still cherish my "opa" (Korean big brothers) who, while they used to throw me around, are the most protective and caring big brothers I could ask for! They have given me every kind of nickname possible! I have been "amba-chovey", "ambasing" (which is a brand of Korean toilet paper, by the way!), and have settled on, "ambuya." The "ya" sound on the end is what they add to a person's name when they are close to them. Kind of a diminutive.

Occasionally, Mrs. Lee has a big party for the girls where they graze on amazing Korean food and play around. Here are some pictures of some of the culinary delights I feasted on all night long!

This is Gim-Bahb. It is Korean-style sushi. Tonight, she coated it in egg and pan fried it. It was SO yummy!

Just so you know, my jeans now hate me.

Here is Mrs. Lee - the best Korean cook I have ever met! (Trust me, I have met a LOT of Korean cooks!) Out of all the Korean meals, my favorite is Kimchi Chigae. It is a ordinary dish about as common over there as peanut butter and jelly is here. They always laugh when I beg them to make it because it is just an every day dish for them. The dish is a soup made out of kimchi (a pickled cabbage with so much red pepper it is red). They usually put some kind of fish in it and generally leave the bones to get crushed up at the bottom of the pan.
This is my really good friend, Phuong. We became close friends when I was the program director for the Wake Forest Location and she was (and still is) the program director for the West Raleigh Location.