잡채!

One of the things I took from my years in the Army was an abiding love of Korean cuisine.

It actually began while I was at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, CA — as part of the curriculum in the Korean language course, we were occasionally taken on a field trip to one of the local Korean restaurants and encouraged to experiment with all the different dishes. In no time at all, I was hooked.

My subsequent assignment to Korea was culinary bliss. I had something of the local cuisine every other day on average.

Since my return to the States in '90, I've been mostly deprived of my favorite foreign food. In my hometown, Santa Barbara — the city with the most restaurants per capita in the world, it is often claimed — there is every kind of restaurant you can imagine, except for Korean.

In the Bay Area there are plenty of Korean restaurants to be found, but life in San Jose at the height of the tech boom being what it was, I rarely had the time or inclination to do anything after work but go home.

North Carolina? Surprisingly, there's a pretty good Korean restaurant less than 10 miles from my home... but there are few things that seem to me to be quite so pathetic as a man going to a restaurant for dinner alone.

So, having mastered barbecue, I've determined to learn how to cook Korean food.

Tonight was my first foray into that realm. For my first effort, I decided on 잡채 (chap chae) — a noodle/vegetable dish (sometimes with meat) that was one of my favorites.

If I do say so myself, it was a success... even if it looked like a mess.

아주 촣아요 — very good!

^{[I hope I remembered the spelling correctly.]}

Addendum: afterwards, the kitchen looked like a tornado had passed through.

Posted by Russ at 11:10 PM, April 17, 2005 in Cooking