Wanted

Your old, well-loved, nearly sheer, floral, funky designed, throwback from the sixties....pillowcases.  Where did you think I was going with that?

I am working on a dressmaking adventure of sorts (more on that soon) and I need all the pretty pillowcases I can get.  Vintage prints are great, fun patterns and florals are welcome. 
And now I have proved, once and for all, that I am a bit crazy.  But it's a good crazy, I promise.

Marking Motherhood

It's been three years now.
Three years since we slept soundly through the night without one ear cocked and waiting for the sound of a child needing us in the night. 
Three years since we spent an entire day, 24 hours, doing exactly what we wanted to do when we wanted to do it.
Three years since another mother's loss and pain became our life's greatest gift and the physical embodiment of our greatest joy, the fact of which we struggle with each and every day.
Three years since I held his tiny hand in mine for the first time, feeling both his physical strength and the strength of his character coursing through his baby soft skin.
Three years since my maternal ache became maternal love.
Three years since a baby boy, who in the course of less than six months had lost two families, a country, a language, all familiar sights, smells, and sounds, took the biggest leap of faith imaginable and held our hands, smiled back at our smiles, and learned to love and trust again.
Three years since one small boy changed our world, for the better, forever. 
We love you, Harry.  You rock our world.

A Food Post: Cooking With Maangchi

While food is only one aspect of a culture, I think food especially embodies the character and soul of the people, those who have brought recipes down through generations or mixed their own new flavors with old standards in the creation of something new.  The food we eat sustains and grows our families; a carefully prepared meal can express our love for someone, celebrate the birth of a child, or rejoice in the union of families in marriage.  The foods we prepare can reflect our society's bounty, or delineate the space between prosperity and poverty.  Food is symbolic and meaningful; what we eat tells the story of our lives, simply.

When we knew we were going to adopt from South Korea, one of the first things I wanted to do was try Korean food.  I had never had it before, and while eating the food specific to a country is not an education in its culture, values, or mores, it was at least a starting point, a place from which to jump into our greater education of Korea.  Three plus years down the line from that jump I can safely say this: If the only requirement for moving to a country was a profound love for its food, I would be able to move to South Korea (among others) in a heartbeat.  The unique flavor combinations, the spicy hot kimchi, and the pride taken in the presentation of the food itself felt both new and like home at the same time for me.

Even if I didn't love Korean food I would want my children to grow up knowing (and hopefully loving) the smells, textures, tastes, and sights of the food of their country and culture of birth, but living in Upstate NY we have very limited access to Korean restaurants.  So we did the next best thing: we bought Korean cookbooks, researched recipes online, and began a culinary adventure in our very own kitchen.  We have churned out some great meals by flipping to a page and following a recipe, but we're never quite sure if we obtained the proper texture or presentation of a dish.  That all changed when I stumbled upon this website: Cooking Korean Food With Maangchi.  Maangchi is my new hero for taking the time to make online videos showing how to cook Korean food.  It's like beaming up a culinary teacher whenever I want to make a new dish.  I get to see what the ingredients look like, how the vegetables should be cut, what consistency the marinade should have, what substitutions will work, and how the finished dish should be arranged for the table.  And her recipes are great, too!

My very favorite Korean dish, bulgogi (fire meat) is easy to make and is so scrumptious it's like eating candy...whenever we make it we fight over the leftovers, and the kids wolf it down as if they haven't eaten for months.  The same marinade is awesome on chicken, too.

A dish my mom and I had in Insadong that was terrific was bulgogi jungol (fire meat hot pot or stew).  It is a great way to get your vegetables in, as they soak up the amazing flavor of the beef marinade and are hard to resist.

I also love bibimbap (mixed rice with vegetables), which takes a while to prepare but is well worth all of the effort.

While we haven't tried all of her recipes yet, we are happily working our way through them.  I am so excited to have a visual resource to go along with our cookbooks.  Really, go check out her site.  The videos are fun to watch and the ingredients section in the left sidebar is especially helpful for those of us who are clueless as to what certain pastes, noodles, or spices look like.  Cooking your own Korean food has never been so easy!  Of course, it helps if you have a laptop that you can perch on your kitchen counter as you cook.

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I also recommend the books eating Korean (Cecilia Hae-Jin Lee) and Dok Suni (Jenny Kwak), both available on Amazon.com.  We especially like the gamja-buchim (potato patties and dipping sauce) in Dok Suni, and the d'ak-dori-tang (stewed chicken with potatoes) is excellent as well.  In eating Korean the recipe for yuja cha (citron tea) is as close as I have come to recreating what I had with my lunch in Insadong (my mouth waters just thinking about it), and the recipe for mandu (dumplings) is great.  Happy cooking and, more importantly, happy eating!

Lapland Lake, Round 2

We spent last week at Lapland Lake again, staying in the same cottage we used during our stay last August.  It was a really nice break from our routine and the quiet that can be found there is both soul soothing and intense all at once.  I loved listening to the birds all day, watching Harry and Emma splash around at the beach, and even stealing a little time away alone with Brendan.  Some pictures until I can wipe the vacation cobwebs from my brain:
 2007
2008
I love these father and daughter pictures.  Emma has grown so much in the past nine months...in size, comfort level with our family, independence, and even her hair.  Her speech clicked over this vacation and we have discovered that with the addition of verbal skills she is a bossy little woman.  She knows what she wants, she knows what she wants you to do, and she really likes to get her way.  On a good note, she is also willing to let you explain things and she can be quite reasonable when given a good explanation.  And we will gladly accept direction and presumed bossiness from her in lieu of the screeching and screaming we had before.  Last August she was a crawler; this year she delighted in her freedom of movement and kept us busy by running all over the place.  Her balance is very toddler-esque (she's still only 1, after all) but she did an amazing job of keeping up with her brother, trying her best to match him skill for skill. 
  2007
    2008
Maybe it's harder to tell with Harrison, but at our last visit to "camp" he was two and still using a binkie.  It's harder for me to measure his growth in these pictures, as they aren't very close-up, but our boy seriously doesn't hold still long enough for great headshots.  He is a whirlwind, a force, an adventurer and not in a way that causes alarm or depicts lack of focus, rather in a way that is focused and interested, curious and energetic, filled with the joy of movement: running, jumping, skipping, and hopping.  Swinging on swings, sliding down slides, swimming until he can barely move his arms but demanding to keep going.  He has amazing balance and agility and his determination could knock your socks off.  He delights in feeling his body in motion; nothing seems to bring him greater joy.  Well, maybe tractors, especially this Blue Ford 1620. 


We had so much fun, really.  There are 170 pictures, but I left out most of the adults-in-bathing-suits shots, because I know a few people would have my head if I posted those.  And yes, I know my sunglasses are ridiculous; that was by design, actually.