Skip to main content

Tasty Research

One of the running threads through my NA series is Kwan's addiction to snacks. I can swing describing the American snacks he likes, but I have never tried any Korean snacks (or food, for that matter.) By the time I get to Kwan's novel, which will be the last one of the series, I really need to know at least what some of them taste like. This is for scenes where Annabelle (the American female protagonist) and Kwan initially bond over meals and snacks.

I'm starting to make some of the simpler dishes as far as the food goes, but snacks are tough. The only Korean market in the area is about an hour away in the city. Fortunately you can order just about anything online, so I got some samples of what I think Kwan would like best based on research, trends in South Korean and so forth. Apparently these honey butter potato chips are so popular (and scarce) in South Korea that there's a black market for them.

I keep my sugar intake to under 10g per day for health reasons, so I have to watch it with the sweets, but I have a couple months over which to spread out my sampling. By the time I'm ready to write the book I should have a pretty good handle on how to describe it all.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Love Triangle

The Inheritors (also known as The Heirs ) is an older k-drama that is more like an American soap opera, and yet has one of the best high-school love triangles I've ever seen. As the illegitimate son of a wealthy conglomerate chairman, Kim Tan (Lee Min-ho) was exiled to study in California so that his older half-brother could be groomed to step into their father's shoes. Instead he mostly surfs and goofs off. He meets Cha Eun-sang (Park Shin-hye), who comes to LA in order to escape her dismal life in Korea while bringing wedding money to her older sister, only to find out her sister has lied about her marriage, and is living in squalor. After the sister takes the money and runs off, leaving Eun-sang with no place to stay, Tan ends up alternately taking care of her and making her situation worse. He also falls for her, but she finally connects with a friend and returns to Korea. The money her sister took ends up forcing Eun-sang and her speech-impaired mom to mov...

Pretties

While at the antique mall where my donated throws were being sold I saw this pretty portait of a frog made out of beads, brooches, necklaces and other bling, and had to take a photo of it. This artist is so clever with how they recycle vintage jewelry and findings into new art. That day this little guy came home with me. He was cheap, made from a very old crazy quilt, very shabby, and has a serene quality that primitives sometimes possess. He'll be hanging out with me in the sewing room. Was it necessary to buy this? Nope. Do I regret the purchase? Nope. I also bought this apothecary jar filled with buttons, threads and other wonders. If you want to sort through it with me, check out more pics here .

Not the Best Timing

Woo-ri the Virgin is one of those k-dramas that is probably going to have a lot of hate, as it features a religious protagonist caught in a love triangle after becoming accidentally pregnant via a rather ridiculous artificial insemination mix-up. This while she's keeping a lifelong vow of chastity until marriage, no less. While Woori was at times pretty clueless, and some of the drama's complicated plot lines got annoying, I actually thought it was pretty charming. The ending also startled me, which is very difficult to do. Im Soo-hyang plays Oh Woo-ri, an assistant drama writer who is dating police detective Lee Kang-jae (Shin Dong-wook). Both are faithful and in a nice relationship (always doomed in Korean romances) when a mix-up at a hospital leaves Woo-ri pregnant with the baby of Raphael (Sung Hoon), the handsome chaebol son of the hospital's rich and powerful conglomerate owner. As it happens Raphael, who has just beaten stomach cancer, can't father any o...