Korean Cooking Lessons

After basketball on Monday, Gabe, Elizabeth, Stephen, and I were invited over to Byong-kyu's house to learn how to make kimbap. Kimbap is traditional Korean, and it has become one of my favorite foods (including American food). It's basically a thin sheet of dried seaweed (called kim) rolled up around rice (bap), egg, tuna, and various kinds of vegetables and roots. While the boys had fun outside with the high school guys, Elizabeth and I enjoyed rolling the kimbap on special bamboo mats and drinking herb tea while attempting to chat in Korean with Byong-kyu's mom.
Traditionally in Korea, the parents live with their children, and this family has their grandmother living with them. She lived through both the Korean War and the Japanese occupation so it was interesting to talk to her. I have a hard time understanding the older people (they use a different type of vocabulary), but Elizabeth does well.

All the ingredients, ready and waiting

Puppy checks out the menu...Koreans eat on the floor which happens to be right at nose level for little Fifi (not really his name - I don't remember what it was). The finished product. I've tried making kimbap at our apartment, but my seaweed always ends up with holes in it and rice coming out everywhere. I learned the secret is the bamboo mats. When we were all finished, Byong-kyu's mother gave us our own bamboo mats so now I can make kimbap in Florida.
Yummy!