08. 21. LUNCH

묵: awesome possum jelly

Seminar weekdays are super great. Today we went to get duck, and before it descended upon our tables we had the usual assortment of side dishes. This looked so good that I had to take a picture even though I think I didn’t actually have any of it since it was on the other side of the table. Wiki lists the name of the food as “muk” but that just reminds me of Pokemon and it looks like it should be pronounced wrongly. So I am going to call it awesome possum jelly. Besides, we couldn’t quite figure out what it was made of, it definitely wasn’t acorn and didn’t seem to be green soy either. Speaking of green soy, I am this close to going off on a tangent about green soy sprouts and the name of the food derived from them and the scholar-politician who gave his name to the food and the era of criminally romantic turmoil that he lived in, but I will restrain myself.

steamed and stuffed duck

This is before it was carved to bits, but inside the duck there’s a huge mound of sticky rice and chestnuts and pumpkin seeds and pine nuts and dates and other good things. But really I’ve never been a fan of making rice sweet with things like chestnuts and dates, and I was in it for the meat, so I went mostly for the duck. It was really good, but the reason I love duck is because it’s so dark and greasy and rich — this way of cooking it made it taste much closer to chicken than anything I was used to. It was good, but I did enjoy the next item on the list more.

barbecue duck

Oh, yay. This was more like it. We’d actually thought that the steamed duck would be enough for the five of us, but thankfully we were wrong and we had to order half a barbecue duck in addition. Truth be told, I think I might have been a little sad without it. Of course after the eating was done, I was disgustingly full — miraculously enough, I actually gained a significant amount of weight from that one meal, no lie. I’m still burning it off, maybe another day or two and I’ll be back to the pre-duck equilibrium, but what the hell, duck. What the hell. (The great thing about ducks is that no matter what you say to them, they will quack back at you. It is so cute.)

07. 01. LUNCH

sulfur smoked duck (유황오리), seasoned radish (무말랭이), microwavable rice and a cup of good old-fashioned water

And also Pride and Prejudice in the background. I got back starving as always, but to my credit, I had about twenty pages of the book left and I decided that I might as well finish it during lunch so that I could continue The Long Goodbye in the gym. So I had lunch in bed. I mean, really, it wasn’t like some super hot paramour brought it into the room, but at least I didn’t have to cook anything. I am getting so much reading done lately. So far I’ve reread Slaughterhouse-Five, read Pride and Prejudice, two-thirds of The Long Goodbye, and the endless packets that we have for the classes I’m auditing. So Darcy is supposed to be pretty much all that, yes? But with all the respect and all the love I have for Colin Firth, which is a remarkable amount, I assure you, I don’t really see how he — well, I mean, isn’t Darcy taller, darker, or am I just prejudiced because the first actor I saw playing Mr. Knightley was Jeremy Northam? Do I have an unreasonable stereotype in my mind of what Austen heroes should look like? Anyway, that is that, but with the novel finished, I am still on team Wickham. I can’t help it. I think I will like Willoughby tremendously. Of course, I liked Fred Vincy better when he was an idiot. I don’t care what Nabokov says — I will get through being an English major by hopping from one eligible male character to another. I will empathize. Unfortunately Eugene Wrayburn is still giving the Austen and Eliot men the old ultra-violence thrashing, and what is more, he is doing it with an air of careless detachment. That reminds me that I should reread Catch-22 sometime, because ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen is another of my great favorites. Yes, I read novels about the absurdity of imposed order and the futility of war in the face of human stupidity for the men.

06. 30. DINNER

유황오리: sulfur smoked duck

Remember when I posted the same picture of the walnut and craisin bread in order to portray the monotony of my breakfasts? This is kind of like that, except it’s not as well thought-out. On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, I am at a great risk for forgetting to take pictures of dinner because I am so freaking hungry after standing an hour in public transportation, especially in a bus which is like a circus and a softcore porn movie at the same time. On Tuesdays and Thursdays I am liable to forget breakfast — because I might be up too late for it — or lunch, because I will be starving after four hours of class. Maybe next time I’ll try getting one of those amazing waffles they have during break. But this is not that time, and since it is true that I had some of the leftover duck for dinner, this will be all. Also, I am nearly done reading Pride and Prejudice, which is one of those achievements only great in perspective with how bad I am at doing that sort of thing most of the time. Like grilling salmon. Darcy is Darcy, of course, but I have a soft spot for profligates.

salad pattern #1832

Who was it that said that old vegetables don’t die, they just fade away? Well, here’s salad pattern #1832 made from vegetables I have been neglecting for something like a week. It’s definitely not as good as when things are fresh, and actually the mushrooms were kind of gross so I might be heading for salad pattern #1833 which will not include mushrooms. Or will include grilled mushrooms, perhaps, but when not fresh they are not to be ingested raw. Some would argue that under no circumstances are they to be ingested raw; but I am Asian and we make up a great majority of those poisoned by mushrooms worldwide. I must do my duty for Queen and country.

유황오리: sulfur smoked duck

We also bought a pre-packaged thing of duck when we were grocery shopping, because I am a huge fan of duck and I kept dropping hints that I wanted some. My brother likes it, I think, but I think I am the only one so in love with it. Duck is so incredibly greasy and dark and amazing, a different kind of dark from, say, ostrich, the taste of which I memorized carefully so that next time someone asks, I can actually tell them what it tastes like instead of being all “Um, well, you know, I did have it, but it was kind of marinated, maybe, I don’t remember, it was a really long time ago, and we fed the cat bits of omelette, and um, yeah.” Which is embarrassing. I don’t approve of the sesame seeds sprinkled on top, but I am of the opinion that sesame seeds hardly belong anywhere, and certainly not in 90 percent of the foods that they do end up on top of.