Gio is part of a FB food group that i belong to and she posts sporadically, but she is alive and well.
hope we get some news on SMTucker soon…
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those noodles look amazing!
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Don’t knock it til you try it…Ketchup is a secret ingredients of several of my mom’s Korean dishes. For example, she makes an awesome dipping sauce with ketchup, kochijang (Korean chili paste), sesame oil and seeds.
Your bibimbap party looks positively scrumptious! There are no hard and fast rules about what should go into bibimbap (as there shouldn’t be in any type of cusine, IMO)…traditionally, families usually throw into the bowl whatever bits and ends they have left in the fridge.
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Here too. Her last post was like, 1.5 month ago?! Hope she just wants a break from the food talk, and she is in her frenzy food making mood.
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Oh, that’s great to know, mariacarmen. I miss Gio! And smtucker.
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SMTucker is alive and well! Unfortunately, she is dealing with another family member’s health issues. She is on hiatus from HO for now but she’s grateful for her Magic Freezer as her zeal for cooking has been diminished. Let’s hope she can find her joy in cooking once again. In the meantime, she’s touched by everyone’s concern here. It’s funny how good online communities can have that effect on people.
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Thanks for the update. Please wish her well
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Thanks for that!
Hope other members who are MIA also OK.
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I felt like putting in the effort today since I couldn’t go to the pub thanks to the unpleasant weather. Made potato dumplings called “Schupfnudeln”, a type of dumplings made of flour, eggs/yolks and mashed potatoes. Half of the flour is replaced with potato starch which helps the dumplings keep their shape well. Everything was fried in duck fat, even the Tyrolean Speck.
This meal is most often served with Sauerkraut but I just used it up the other day. I have red cabbage kimchi laying around so why not use that. It’s just as good as the original version with non spicy Sauerkraut. We loved it.
Austria meets Korea.
Partner went to the kitchen to fetch another plate of kimchi half way through.
I couldn’t hold the camera so steady today, photos are barely usable.
PS: Thanks, MariaC!
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Even when @smtucker is cooking less, she is still twice more productive than my normal self! 
Take care!!
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I made greek turkey burgers by mixing in feta, black olives, oregano, sundried tomatoes, salt and pepper into ground turkey. I served them with a tossed green salad.
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Crab cakes again. Reheated and stood up well for a second appearance, along with slaw and lettuce greens
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No hint of spring up here in the mountains. Rolled in late to new snow in the driveway but preapred with some smoked gouda, the 2nd baguette, split pea soup and some red wine. Getting the hang of coming up here prepared. Taking a long weekend to get the last ski days of the year in. Wintry as it is next week will be a total melt off.
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Thank you so much, everyone seemed to really enjoy it- this was new to my family since when we have gone for korean in nyc they always want bbq!
I am a huge fan of ketchup, i wish i had seen this in time before i had one of the leftover pancakes! (Part of breakfast the next morning)
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Last (rainy) day in CA…
The area my parents are in has huge agriculture business (foxy, dole, driscolls, among many others) and get lucky with occasional gifts from friends in the industry. Like a huge gorgeous bouquet of rainbow chard! It felt wrong to even cook it, so i sliced it all very thin and made a salad with a qyick dressing using the white kimchi liquid, a garlic clove, salt and pepper and some fancy olive oil i found in the cupboard from somewhere in Napa.
I had found some tiny japanese sweet potatoes at the asian grocery and roasted a bunch of those whole, just rubbed with some oil and salt. The skin got nice and crisp with the sweet fluffy innards!
In the photo i put a regular size sweet potato on top to show the difference, they were maybe 2-3”.
And the rest of the meal was just an assortment of the leftover banchan and such with a lovely chardonnay.
I had stopped at the great little french bakery earlier in the day, gave myself a bit of a tummy ache with the fantastic cannele but worth each bite! 
We had some sliced asian pear and a few truffles from the same bakery for dessert, the blackberry sage (surprising and tasty combo) as well as a smoked hazelnut flavor
Epic travel day today, the same friend had gifted my parents some gorgeous kale, so i had packed up a massaged kale salad with smoked tofu, sugar snap peas, and some cherry tomatoes that became lunch/dinner at my layover
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I’m staying with a friend in Berlin whose kitchen is not exceptionally well-outfitted, so I’ve been keeping meals very simple. She mentioned the other day that she had some fresh ginger to use up, though, so after rummaging through her spice cabinet and finding most of what I needed (cumin, coriander, turmeric, cinnamon), I decided to make qeema.
It turned out very tasty, but the flavor profile was somehow different than what I’m used to. My friend came in while I was putting the spices away and mentioned how nice it was that I had used Kümmel (which I thought was cumin), since it’s a traditional German spice that has apparently fallen out of fashion lately, in favor of Kreuzkümmel (which I didn’t know existed). So I’m thinking “what the heck is Kreuzkümmel” and I’m totally confused, because the picture of the seeds on the Kümmel jar look just like cumin seeds. Google to the rescue. Kümmel is caraway, and Kreuzkümmel is cumin. Doh!
I never really thought about how similar the seeds look before, nor thought of them as swappable spices since they are used so differently in America, but the caraway really did make a decent accidental cumin substitute. A language and cooking lesson all in one day!
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My opinion, in raw applications like slaw, it’s a big difference, but if cooked, you can get away with substituting one for the other. (This accident happens to me more times than I care to admit.)
Last two months were very busy. I hope life doesn’t get in the way of HO for the next few weeks. Hopefully I can post a couple meals a day and catch up on March.
Simple “grilled” mackerel (it’s actually high-temp baked.) Served with cucumber, pineapple, avocado salad. It’s my kid’s favorite fish.
Had dinner at a relative’s house recently. These were the standouts: dahi baray (dumplings in yogurt) and nihari. The dumplings in the dahi baray were made with daal, which gives them great texture and flavor. All too often these days people are using pakora-type dumplings for dahi baray.
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LOL, glad to know I’m not the only one! I tasted them both raw after dinner and as you noted, when raw they are very different, with the caraway having a distinctive menthol-y and anise-y flavor, with less of the smoky earthiness of cumin. However, once cooked the menthol flavor really subsided, and the anise quality was subdued. I think what I was missing was the intense earthiness of cumin - the caraway contributed some but it was more subtle. Luckily the dish was still edible (and tasty)!
Love the combination of the Avo/Pina garnish/slaw…I have got give it a try…perhaps tonight…I am making some sort of fish…and now more thought I might try a Mango/Avo mixture…
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