MinJungKim.com Braindump v 6.0 Gah. I’m still doing this?

Gravy. Too much fracking gravy.

Gravy. Too much fracking gravy.

Originally uploaded by minjungkim.

I’ve got a problem.

This is a recurring issue that I have when it comes to the banal and yet glorious task of cooking.

This is not a confession that I’m a bad cook. To the contrary, I’m a pretty decent cook. I’m just very inconsistant.

Inconsistancy in the frequency of my cooking.

Inconsistancy in the quality of my cooking.

(Dinner parties ~5-6 dishes, 2 are A+, 3 are Bs, and 1 will be eaten alone, afterhours, in the dark, under the stairs, seasoned with the salt of shame from my tears and served with a rusty spoon which will in fact actually improve the failed creation’s flavor)

But my most pressing problem in the kitchen is not, as many folks may encounter, in the cleanup of the aftermath (though my hubby may differ in opinion on my general chaotic culinary endevors).

It is in SCALE. Understanding the SCALE of cooking.

For 1. For 2. I just can’t do it.

I can’t cook for a group under 6.

No matter how much I try, things just grow out of hand.

For instance this evening.

Now yesterday I’d made a batch of biscuits. Nothing fancy, just out of the box biscuits. Tasty but missing something.

Tonights midnight cooking inspiration was to concoct some sausage country gravy to go with the biscuits.

Mind you, I have little more than a dozen biscuits left. I only wanted to make a small pot of gravy.

So here’s how it went.

MJ dethaws the Jimmy Dean and tosses is into the pan.

“Honey?! What’s the ingredients for country gravy? General white sauce right? flour, oil, milk maybe?”

“Yeah, that’s about right.”

“OK~!”

MJ takes the cooked ground sausage out the pan.

MJ uses a small bowl to mix olive oil with flour to create a roux and mixes is well. Measuring by instinct and her hands only. Looks like less than a cup at most of flour. Paltry it seems.

MJ tosses is into the pan to cook and brown, stirring as it bubbles. She tosses in salt.

MJ adds in a a 2 cups of milk and walks to the compy to watch a silly video about the security db/login/flaws of a certain microblogging everywhere messaging service.

MJ goes back to the pot to realize “HOLY SHIT THAT LOOKS THICK”.

MJ adds a cup of water to the pot to thin it out, stirring it vigorously so it’s lump free.

MJ adds a cup of water to the pot to thin it out, stirring it vigorously so it’s lump free.

MJ adds a cup of water to the pot to thin it out, stirring it vigorously so it’s lump free.

MJ adds a cup of water to the pot to thin it out, stirring it vigorously so it’s lump free.

MJ adds a cup of water to the pot to thin it out, stirring it vigorously so it’s lump free.

MJ waves hands exasperatedly in the air exclaiming that gravy is like the TRIBBLES. IT JUST GETS OUT OF CONTROL.

MJ moves the gravy into a larger pan and turns off the heat before adding the sausage back into the gravy, making sure the only lumps in her gravy are from the sausage.

MJ sits at the table at midnight, wondering what on earth she will make to go with the gravy after the biscuits run out.

So what on earth shall I do with all this FUCKING GRAVY.

…

…

At least it’s quite tasty.

Hunter wishes you good fortune in the new year.

Hunter wishes you good fortune in the new year.

Originally uploaded by minjungkim.

Smile

Because if this photo of my nephew doesn’t make you grin, then frankly, you have no soul.

And you do have a soul, don’t you?

Linguistic navel gazing.

One month into being married and I’ve noticed the surge in use of plural words.

As if  wearing a tiara on your wedding day makes you suddenly a member of royalty.

“Yes, * we * will be making it to your party.”

“Not sure if  * we * can make it.”

“* We * are so excited to see you!”

“I don’t know. Let me check. * We * might have something already.”

So the regular replacement of the oft used and bemoaned singular  has been supplanted by the new communication darling of * We *.

It’s weird. But * We * don’t really mind, do * we * .

An aside and a reminder.

First, an aside.

Last night Coley dreamt she was in a chimney floo. I dreamt my honey had a fever/flu and couldn’t remember me. Today he woke up coughy and with chills.

That’s all totally weird.

Next, a reminder.

That each day of our lives requires a moment of pause, for reflection, meditation, digestion, appreciation, and breathing.

And oh yes, every now and again, some poetry.

My favorite:

Wild Geese
by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting ?
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

from Dream Work by Mary Oliver

Sandwich making is Serious Stuff

I have decided to interrupt my neverending upload of wedding related photos on Flickr to show off my sandwich making skills.  More wedding pix to flickr tomorrow, surely. But let us enjoy this brief aside to discuss the art and engineering behind proper sandwich making.

Yes I’m damn serious about it. Tonight, I was very pleased with the results of my homemade sandwich. It was a thing of tasty beauty.

First off: The Ingredients:

Slow cooked tender pork  - so tenderly cooked that it litterally flaked easily with a fork and needed to be renamed “tenderly tugged” pork vs. pulled pork. There was no serious pulling involved.  Instead the pork shoulder had been slowcooked with some herbs and vegs for a day and then pulled out, tugged apart, and then seasoned with a medley of yum including pepper, vinegar, sugar, worcestershire sauce,  brown mustard, and bbq sauce.

Fresh butter lettuces - organic, yo.

Fresh steak tomato - organic, yo.

Fresh wheat bread - toasted, yo.

Cheddar cheese - shredded, yo.

And whatever other sandwich condiments you desire.

The key here is good ingredients and timing.   When the pulled pork is still warm and the bread lovely toasted, all else is good with the world.

Then dear kittens, the assembly of the sandwich is important.

This is not a thing that can be willy nilly slapped on.

There is, as Alton Brown has discussed in previous episodes of Good Eats, a clear structural integrity that needs to be addressed in the sandwich assembly.

Toasted Bread Top

Tomato  (Fresh ground pepper on it)

Shredded Cheese

BBQ Tender Tugged Pork

Torn lettuces

Toasted bread bottom

The order is important to ensure that the bread doesn’t get squishy and that the messy parts have something solid and sturdy just on top of them to hold the sandwich together.

The results, my dears, is nothing short of glorious yum.

Lovely hand model would be Mr. Jason Hoffman who ate 2 of these sandwiches this evening as a testament to my amazing sandwich making abilities.

Ernie!!

Erine!!

Originally uploaded by flawedartist.

One of my favorite shots of Ernie evar!
No wig. No drunkennes. No passing out. No angry look. No shaking fist. No fobbyness. No hoodie. No faux sad face.

Just classy Ernie looking sexy.

Blog to self:

Huh. So *this* is what I look like now?
Huh.

Ok.

Cool.

Min Jung & Jason’s Wedding Day

Min Jung & Jason’s Wedding Day

Originally uploaded by minjungkim.

Dad and Monica really are quite cute.
This pix makes me quite happy.

The Annual Breakup Post

(In the tradition of past breakup posts - See 2006 2005, 2004, 2003)

Dear 2007,

Well. We both knew this was coming. It’s our thing.

This was your year. The year of the pig. The year of wealth and prosperity and good things. There’s been a lot of that together that we’ve shared. Particularly in memories and in laughter.

To do things together to the fullest and to know at the end of it all that we have lots of ridiculously rich memories to share with each other and to say goodbye to each other without regrets and without hesitation.

We’re both old and mature enough now to know that about both ourselves and each other.

And really, my what a year we’ve had.

We’ve traveled to Texas, Michigan, Seattle, Berlin, Heidelberg, and Paris.

We’ve said hello and farewell to good friends and family. It’s been a year where I’ve felt fury and frustration, whimsy and delight. Snarky giggles and sometimes whimpery nights of needing simple comforts.

We’ve maintained love and seen it grow and bloom into something gorgeous that has outshone any doubt that’s managed to burrow itself into a corner of self doubt or worry in my psyche.

Dear 2007, you’ve even been there for me for some of the happiest days of my life. I mean, getting engaged, getting married(Flashmob version in the livingroom). Getting married again. (In the church and all that good stuff.)

And you’ve given me the opportunity for tremendous hope and joy when Jason and I found out that we were pregnant. And then to lose that pregnancy so soon after we’d grown to glow with the idea of having a physical manifestation of our joy and love for each other come into our lives. It’s been rough, losing that hope, though we both know that it’s only temporary and that hope, well, like our spirits, it too will rise. And that in grief, there is still the opportunity to see and to know true love and to understand its greatest significance in providing strength and comfort during those moments of weakness and tenderness.

To learn that so early in a marriage is, at the very least, an important blessing to recognize and stay focused on.

Dearest 2007, I want to thank you for being such an important year in my life. It’s been a year full of challenges and growth, beauty and some grief, tenderness and laughter, song and heart written personal scripture. You’ve been a year that I’ve learned to love in jagged and sharp moments as well as those glowy and full of firecrackers under my skin.

So thank you, 2007. You’ve been as good to me as you could. And I hope I’ve done right by you as well.

Wish me well with 2008,

Min Jung

Oh the things…

I’m a reasonable, patient, and generally well meaning person.

I have a reasonable metric of what is JUST and FAIR and I stick by that. If things are legitimately accidents then meh, whatever.

I mean, it doesn’t take much to tweak me but most things will roll off my back in a week or so and then be forgotten by month’s end.
Persistent picks at your psychic energy can be really exhausting however and somehow go into repetitive churn and sit and brew mode. And then that situation/job/person/restaurant/etc. hits some sort of critical point of ShitListDome from which there is absolutly no return. Of course, as a Catholic, (a bad one at that and feeling guilty for it) I feel guilty for feeling spiteful but can’t do anything about it until I’ve cleared my psychic head space. And then for whatever reason, I’m unable to forget the most minor and unintentional gaff and somehow create an entire script of progressively demonizing character attacks in my head about it all.

I’m trying to get better about it.

It’s one of the brilliant things about my hubby in that he keeps me level, reigns me in when I need it, and still empathizes appropriately with a comforting manner, and makes me smile.

This post really has nothing to do about my anger festering cycle about anything recent or particular.

This is about a tweak.

I’m FRICKING TRYING TO WRITE THANK YOU CARDS FROM THE WEDDING REGISTRY TOOL FROM MACYS AND I’M GETTING THIS STUPID ERROR!

Microsoft JScript runtime error ‘800a138f’

‘giftRecs’ is null or not an object

/registry/thankyoucard_manager.asp, line 286

SERIOUSLY PEOPLE? ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

** Wildly flailing arms in the air and alternately shaking fists at the sky **
…

…

…

I must be hormonal cuz this feels like way more aggro than being just tweaked.

Pix are up from the wedding

Much thanks to Jay Jao for working so hard all day and taking some phenomenal shots! (Tremendous work!)
http://minjungjason.mochamonkey.com/ 

The bride and groom

The bride and groom

Originally uploaded by heather.

I love this shot too!

Yup, we’re married!

Congratulations MJ & Jason!

Originally uploaded by Laughing Squid.

Thanks to Scott for this awesome pix. Way more on the flickr.
http://www.laughingsquid.com