Ever since I was nominated I’ve received many emails of congratulations and encouragement, also a lot of people seem to have discovered my blog through the contest, so I’m grateful for that.  Eventually I just registered on Saveur website today!
Whom did I vote for? shh! I voted for myself! As long as they put me in the list of contestants, I like to be the winner! : )

I checked out the contest – one thing that bothers me is that  it looks like only Americans and Canadians can vote. You can see a map of my site visitors at the bottom of the Korean food fans page, my site has always been an international one.
So, don’t waste of your time to vote for me if you are living in other than North America (USA, Canada). But the website is great to check if you are interested in Food!

It says, “Vote between March 1st and April 2nd. Winners will be announced on April 5th”

You always say to me before trying out my recipes like this: “Maangchi, wish me good luck with my dakkangjung making!” Now my turn! “Wish me good luck, baybees!” : )

I wanted to tell you about a new contest put on by the Korean Presidential Council for Nation Branding and YouTube. The purpose of the contest is to promote Korean food around the world through video recipes on YouTube.

You can find the details here, but basically you need to make a video of your Korean recipe, upload it to YouTube and submit it to them as them as well. The deadline is March 31st.

Here’s a video introduction to the contest:

Click here to view the embedded video.

So many readers sent me great photos of Korean food, and even some great video responses. I met a lot of passionate cooks at my meetups. I know you are smart and dedicated cooks, and a lot of you can cook Korean food very well. So I really encourage you to make a video and enter this contest, and show everyone what delicious food you can make. I’m not going to enter the contest this time.

Hurry up and please let me know if you enter the contest. I will do my best to promote your videos!

Good luck!

“ooh heavy heavy!”

We did a day tour by boat of the Caño Negro wildlife refuge. Along the river toward lake Caño Negro, we saw so many kinds of birds, reptiles, and plants. Some locals were showing off the fish that they caught. The name of fish is “gar fish.” My tour guide said that the fish has no gills and its bladders take a role as lungs. The fish looked like half fish, half something like crocodile. Scary looking! I don’t think I can cook it because I don’t want to touch it. eww!

This boy, the son of the hotel owner where I stayed, is playing with his pet bird. The poor bird’s wings were cut, so he could not fly away. He posed for me to show his profile: rooster comb hair style! : )

This man  seemed to hang around there all the time at the central park in San Jose. When he noticed my watching, he gestured me to join the game.

Danillo, he is a shuttle bus driver. He carries a basic English text book to learn English. “If my English is good, my salary will go up. I want to be a tour guide someday.” He tried to teach me Spanish words. I think he could become a good Spanish teacher. When I remember some words that he taught, he was so happy that he almost jumped out of his seat. : )

At the entrance of hot springs. I don’t know why I felt good sitting next to the plump woman sculpture. : )

Costa Rican payphones. The height of pay phones are different. I think the shorter one is for little children. Considerate!

My tour guide picked a stick from a tree and cut the tip with his knife. Once he cut and pulled it up, a beautiful flower came out!  The name of the flower is “pachira” and the flower smelled really good. “Anybody wants this flower?” he asked, I took it quietly but very excitedly. I brought home to make a frame but the color of the flower changed to darkish brown and shrunk! My treasure is gone! : )

I took this bus to go to Manuel Antonio National Park from Quepos where I stayed. The bus fare was only a quarter!

This shuttle bus is taking you from hotel to hotel. It was very convenient and comfortable.

This girl from Switzerland,  was traveling with her 2 other friends. Take a look at her tattoo! It says “love, happiness, friendship” in Chinese!  hmm, these 3 elements are the most important in her life? I have too many things important, so if I put on tattoo, my body will be full of tattoo! : )  I sometimes see some people’s tattoos with wrong spelling.

oh, I forgot his name. He was our  tour guide when we went snorkeling and sunset watching. He is teaching surfing at an institute in Quepos, Costa Rica. He represents Costa Rica in surfing competition! When I asked him if he has ever been to USA, he said yes. He entered the competition in California a couple of years ago. He said, “oh, the California water was so cold for me that I lost!”  haha, the temperature of Californian ocean is cold? What can I say? He is living in warm country. : )

One day before we left Quepos to San Jose to come home, we were browsing the small town to find a good place to eat. We found people lining up at a bar. I asked them, “what’s going on here?” they said, “oh, the owner of this bar is giving us free food tonight to celebrate Mardi Gras!” Free food! holy molly!

I saw lots of food on the table: jambalaya with sausage, pork, rice, beans…! Later I heard that the owner of the bar provides free food to their customers on American special occasions such as Thanksgiving Day, New Year’s Day, Mardi Gras, St. Patrick Day.
Who is the owner? Wanda in the middle of the photo! She is running the bar with her husband.
If you visit Quepos, be sure to find “Wacky Wanda!” It’s the name of the bar.  She will welcome you with huge smile!

I met this lady Tracey at a coffeshop. Her hometown is Calgary Alberta, Canada! She and her husband came to Costa Rica to travel 4 years ago for the first time and they fell in love with the country! They moved to Costa Rica 2 years ago and bought a fishing boat. They run their business with the fishing boat and help their customers catch fish!  She said, “We are going back home during low season in May and will come back  in November again.”

“Your name is Wanda?” I asked, and she said, “Yay, wacky Wanda!” We had to yell each other to communicate because the bar was very crowded and noisy. My daughter worried about me going hoarse, I talked so much.

We took this kind of boat for the Cano Negro day tour

2 toed sloth. Hey, lazy sloth! wake up!

I had never seen banana flower before! Beautiful!

aningha (snake bird)

sleeping bats

caiman

floating dead caiman

crocodiles

I forgot the name of the bird.

black vultures

howler monkey. They really howled loudly. It is known that their howling sound travels for three miles through dense forest.

Hey, turtle!, Where are you going alone!

cute spider monkeys!

I was the only person who was interested in these fruits. The guide cut it in half and took some seeds inside and said they are used as food coloring. I forgot the name and I brought these 2 fruits home secretly. : )

My hostel garden in Quepos

Iguana

ooh baby! Killer bees! Please hide your stingers in front of me!

red land crab : this edible gourmet delicacy crab is living in the mountain. I wish I could catch some and cook. : )

Central Park in Fortuna

beach in Manuel Antonio National Park

This small island attracts so many birds for some reason, so the island is full of bird poop. They call this island “poop island.”

Pineapples are ground dwelling fruit and they don’t grow on trees! I learned a new thing.

The town of Quepos where I stayed

If you are  my long time reader, you will probably know who Reinier is!

He will be visiting New York next week! I’m so excited about meeting him now!

I am going to take him to my favorite Korean knife-cut noodle soup place.

If you like to join us, let me know by leaving your comment here: “I’m in!”

I need to reserve a table, because this restaurant is very busy and popular, so be sure to leave a comment if you want to come, so they can make room for all of us.

Where: Arirang
32 West 32nd Street, 3rd Floor,
New York NY 10001 (b/n 5th and 6th; map)
212-967-5088

When: 6:00 pm Thursday, March 4, 2010

If you want to know more about the restaurant, read this well-written review on Serious Eats New York.

Ice cream made with cactus flower. The beautiful purple color got my attention. I had this ice cream twice!

Tamale wrapped in banana leaves

casado: typical Costa Rican meal consisting of rice, black beans, meat, salad, and fried plantains

Costa Rican sweet coconut cookies

steamed plantains cooked with sugar and cinnamon

deliciious doughnuts with cream inside

I had to buy a plastic container in Costa Rica to make lunchbox (doshirak). Jumeokbap (similar to my samgak kimbap recipe) made with kimgaru (laver powder:roasted and crushed seaweed), roasted sesame seeds, shrimp, steamed rice, salt, sugar, vinegar, and salsa sauce. It was a fantastic taste! : )

Mango crepe plus ice coffee for brunch satisfied my empty stomach!  : )

casado with beef and steamed yuka

Whose beer? Their beer! Costa Rican beer! Imperial

a can of pulpo (octopus)! very delicious! I often had this for my snack!

plantain chips. They are not sweet and the taste is kinda bland

colorful  vegetable salads made with fresh and steamed vegetables. I like the warm steamed broccoli.

Vegetables and stir-fried rice! A huge fried crab is buried in the pile of stir-fried rice! : )

I had this seafood with salsa at a restaurant recommended by my travel book “Lonely Planet”. The restaurant is inside of a market in San Jose. They use very fresh seafood, as the travel book said.

Toasted bread, rice with black beans, scrambled eggs, sour cream, fried plantain, and a few strips of fried bacon! Do you think they go together? Yes, it was good to me! : ) I ordered this meal “to go” to eat on the shuttle bus to go to La Fortuna from San Jose.

Costa Rican sweet potatoes and corn! I steamed them with my steamer and made lunchbox when I moved from Fortuna to Quepos.

Pastry. The large circle shape cookie (Orelas) was sweet and cruchy!

Satisfied-looking coffee man! Why? I bought 3 kilos of coffee from him. Each bag of coffee was 500 grams and it $4.oo! Delicious, cheap, and good quality coffee!

People in Costa Rica are very genuine and friendly. Their food is good and most of all, so many people can speak English there. I had no communication problem during my trip.

It was a short trip, so I had to skip many other good places to visit, but I did my best to see and feel the country as much as I could.

I met interesting people, ate good food, saw so many exotic animals, birds, flowers, plants, volcanoes, and fruits!

And! And! Ooh whoo! I did an exciting event! : )
I cooked Korean chicken soup for my amigos there! They loved my chicken soup and enjoyed it a lot. I filmed it with my small digital camera, so it will be posted on my website and YouTube soon. I hope the quality of film is good. Let’s see.

I scheduled my itinerary as simple as I could because I wanted to relax instead of running everywhere. I wanted to reduce travel time, but it ended up being busy everyday. Yes, I can’t sit at the beach comfortably or sleep late in the hotel rooms. That’s my nature.

I woke up early morning and told my daughter, “sleep more..”, but she could not sleep enough because her mom was making noise to prepare to go out in the early morning. : )
Luckily she is very adventurous and curious about so many things about the country, which makes me feel really good!

I have received many emails and messages from my readers. They want to hear my travel story. So I’m going to post some photos of what I saw, what I ate, and whom I met.

Stay tuned!

My trip to Boston was very fun. I was happy and excited to have a part in a movie! It wasn’t difficult for me to act.

It was thrilling to be surrounded by smart, passionate filmmakers. Even though it was cold, they worked so hard. The lighting person had to hold up the lights for a long time, her arms must have been tired. The sound woman had to lay on the floor in an awkward position for a long time, to get the right sound. I was honored to be surrounded by these young artists.

I am leaving for Costa Rica tomorrow with my daughter for 10 days.  My next video recipe will be posted  after I come back. I was trying to post it before leaving, but it’s impossible to get it done before I leave. So much to do!

I don’t think I can read email often while traveling, but if I find an internet cafe, I will check my emails. Can I ask a favor of you guys? Please answer some questions asked by new readers. I know you’ve cooked so many recipes, and if you’re a reader of my website you saw some of the same questions coming up all the time and you read my answers. Maybe you even asked some questions yourself! I would really appreciate it if you helped the new cooks, and I’m sure they would too. I rely on you guys!

I’ll take some photos wherever I go and update you later.

These are some photos I took when I visited Boston:

Once I arrived, we went to a room in next to the Harvard cafeteria and rehearsed.

On set. The old lady on the right is me! And see the sound woman on the floor : )

That’s me! I wish I could have looked older.

Paul Whang, the director, picked me up at the bus station.I made oisobagi for Paul. He loved it. I told him, “when you eat oisobagi, don’t split each piece and eat it from the split part first!  He followed my direction!  : )

Squid strips side dish with tuna pancake!  Paul said: “I missed Korean food a lot!” We had a great dinner from that lunchbox.  I will post these recipes someday!

I’m leaving for Boston soon this morning.
One of my long time blog readers, my website supporter, and Harvard film student Paul Whang invited me to act in his film. I met Paul about 1 1/2 years ago at my LA meetup. He volunteered to be my cameraman at that time.

Recently I got an email from him. He asked  if I’d ever considered acting! He said Harvard film students in their 4th year traditionally make a short movie for their final. The title of his movie is “Dakbokkeumtang” (Korean spicy chicken dish).  : )

“There is a character in the movie who is a Korean old woman starting to lose her memory!”  He said: “..I think you would be perfect for the role!” Haha!

I answered, “Sure, cool!”

So this morning I’m going to Boston and will come back tomorrow night.

Who said friends that you meet on the internet can’t be your real friends! I like to support Paul as he did to me! Besides, acting as a very old and unfashionable woman sounds like too much fun! : )

I like to let you know this exciting news! I’ll tell you about the filming and the movie when I get back!

First, I was very surprised to see the well-equipped kitchen. Whatever I needed, they had: hundreds of stainless steel bowls, butane gas burners, non-stick pans, food processors, lots of different size pots, steamers… Oh, except for 2 items: a rice cooker and a microwave oven. But  I used their nice heavy-bottomed pot to demonstrate multi-grain rice making and it turned out great and fluffy. The little bit of burned rice on the bottom of the pot was very popular with the students. And we made a steamed egg side dish (gyeranjjim) with their steamer instead of using a microwave oven.

I was very happy to meet their staff Mr. Wai Hon Chu, a famous cooking instructor and author of cook book title “The Dumpling.”

He was helping me during my entire class! While I was explaining to my students what we were going to do next, he washed and drained my blanched cabbage. When I tried to wash my cutting board, it was already cleaned by him. When I show how to skewer some ingredients for pancake, he already prepared gas burners and pans for the students!
He knew exactly what I was going to do next each time… Awesome!  : ) I felt very comfortable to teach there thanks to his help!

I told him, “I don’t want to leave this kitchen! I can feed hundreds of people if you help me like this”

I was wondering how the students found my cooking class:  are they my long time blog readers? Or did they find it through the Culinary Center’s advertisement?

Surprisingly most of them didn’t know about my website until they registered for the class. When I asked them what made them come to learn Korean cooking on a precious Saturday afternoon, they said: “Oh, well, we like Korean food!” A few people said they checked my website after they registered the class.

Mr. Wai said there were about 50 people on the waiting list! 50 people! I wished all the 50 people had been in my class.

I taught 6 different recipes and it was another success! We finished on time and I did my best to teach as much as I could. We hugged each other when saying good bye!

All of the students were passionate to learn the recipes and they were very interested in listening to my own stories related to the food I was teaching.

They brought their cameras and took photos of me and them. Mr.Wai took some photos for us. I told the students: “I will blog about this class, let me know if any camera shy person is here.”

Everybody said no problem, and they look like they are saying: “are you kidding? Of course we want to be featured on your blog!”

How can I know?
I know when I see their sparkling eyes! : )

As I mentioned before, I have been interviewed by Korean radio broadcasting companies and newspaper reporters.

Some readers told me that I was on the Korean news on Monday night. Here’s the clip from KBS (Korean Broadcasting Company). If you don’t understand Korean, basically they are saying nice things about me and my videos. Cool!

Click here to view the embedded video.

I’m impressed with the person who made the video clip because he or she must have watched almost all of my video recipes and done lots of research before making it. You will see Korea4me’s video clip and Joon and Chihiro on my Tangsuyuk video.