On Feb.16 at 7:00 pm at a restaurant in Garden Grove, Los Angeles, I got together with 11 of my viewers.
“Oh, Maangchi!”
“Wow, wow!”
“I was worried about today’s weather because it has been raining all day. I drove more than 50 miles to come here!”
“I can’t believe I’m sitting with Maangchi!”
I gave my camera to one of the members, Paul Whang who’s studying film at a university.
Someone says, “Oh, Maangchi you’re more petite than I thought!.” I said, “Yes, I wear my special shoes with high heel for my videos so I look taller than I am!”
Someone says, “My husband asks me how come I keep watching your video recipes over and over again! Then I said, I should not miss any part of what Maangch is doing!”
Someone says, “My mother makes good Korean food, but she never taught me how to cook. I was very happy to find your website!”
Someone says, “Adding fish sauce to miyeokguk (seaweed soup) is a really important tip! That’s all you need to make the soup tasty!”
Time passed too quickly. Our neverending conversation kept going on and on. Eventually the waitress came to us: “Ehh.., you have been sitting almost for 2 hours without ordering food…please. Order some food.” We ordered “Tteok bossam (or ddeokbossam: 떡보쌈 in Korean: roasted meat with thin rice cake). Vegetarian Karen ordered her vegetable pancake.
Nancy brought her sikhye to share with us and I took my spicy “hong uh hwe (ray fish dish)”. The sikhye was really well made and we enjoyed it for our dessert.
I asked, “Have you ever tasted hong uh hwe before?” Nobody said yes. “Are you going to try some?” Some look reluctant and said, “y—-es!” When the chef of the restaurant wanted to taste my hong uh hwe and thanked me, all the members suddenly showed their strong interest. So I ended up wrapping some for their family members.
When I asked vegetarian Karen, “Will you try some?” She said, “yes…” cute!!! : )
I gave her only radish strips.
The waitress approached us, “Eh… it’s time for us to close..” What? Already? I looked around the restaurant and found we were the only group left.
I think we needed more time! Good food, good people! Meeting them makes me feel my decision of teaching Korean food was a good decision.
Good food Good people!
Paul Whang
Tteokbossam (or ddeokbossam: 떡보쌈 )! Wrap the roasted meat with thin rice cake!
Dan Quach brought his own video camera and took the film. It’s available here:
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ryi1rO6cays
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpqscEzS72A
- His website is http://www.thecheatingcook.com/
Paul Whang‘s more films that he made are here:
