Nobody Makes Me Bleed My Own Blood, NOBODY! Oh come on, I had to - it was too easy.

This is the second food post in a series of several I plan on making. This one is dedicated to Thai food, but upcoming posts will feature Cajun (Chicken & Andouile Gumbo, Corn Maque Choux, Barbecued Shrimp, and Roast Beef Poboys), Puerto Rican (Arroz con Gandules [pigeon peas and rice], Adobo Roast Pork, Platanos & Maduros [plaintains]), Cuban (Mojo Pork, Black Beans & Rice), Italian (Pasta Puttanesca, Insalata Caprese, Chicken Piccata), Greek (Chicken with Lemon & Olives, Polpettes [spinach, feta, & potato fritters] a real Greek Salad), Jamaican (Authentic Jerk Chicken, Island Salad, Curried Vegetable Patties), and who knows what else I’ll come up with. DEFINITELY a post on Lowcountry Southern food and things that I make that are exclusive to us, because we eat a lot of really phenominal stuff here in west central Georgia. All of the recipes I post are things I make fairly regularly, so they’re tried and true.

I’ve said in my previous recipe post that Korean food was the soul food of Asian cooking. If this is true, then Thai food is the artwork. There is something about Thai food that I just adore, and it has everything to do with the Thai penchant for chili. I love love LOVE spicy food, and Thai food is known for its liberal use of bird chilis, the tiny, incendiary red and green peppers. Also prevalent in Thai cooking is the use of coconut, lime, basil, and various curries. Most Thai curries are vastly different from traditional Indian curry, but many of the preparation methods are the same. Thai cooking relies on “The Five Flavors” and a balance for each. The Five Flavors are salty, sweet, sour, bitter, and hot. Larb Gai is a good balance of salty, sour, and hot and the cucumber salad adds a slightly sweet element.

Here in Columbus, we have a few Thai restaurants but my favorite is Chili Thai, the closest to our home. Maggie had never eaten Thai before, so this is what I ordered for her on her first trip to the restaurant as it was my favorite and I was certain she’d like it as well - and man oh man was I dead on! They make a fantastic warm chicken salad called Larb Gai, which is my favorite Thai dish hands down. It is fragrant and spicy, made with lean chicken breast, lime juice, fish sauce, lemongrass, chilis, fresh cilantro, and green onions. Part of what gives it its character and distincive flavor is the addition of ground, toasted, raw rice which imparts an interesting flavor and texture to the finished dish. It is a simple thing to make, from start to finish it may take me about 20 minutes including prep time. With the Larb Gai we eat Jasmine rice and Cucumber salad to cool our mouths down from the heat of the chilis used in the Larb Gai. Two other things I enjoy are stir-fried pineapple with ginger, which is very similar in both preparation and usage to chutney, something else I really love, and jasmine flower syrup. The syrup has many uses, from a sweetner for tea and sodas to a dip for fruit. The best thing about the Larb Gai is the fact that it contains almost no fat whatsoever, making it very light, nourishing, and guilt free.

Larb Gai (Thai Chicken Salad)

• 1 lb. boneless, skinless chicken breast, chopped fine

• juice of 2 limes
• 2 tbsp fish sauce
• 1-2 stalks fresh lemongrass - tough, fibrous outer layers removed and lower portion chopped
• 4-8 Thai bird chilis, chopped -or- 1-2 tbsp Thai Kitchen brand red curry paste
• 1 bunch fresh cilantro, roughly chopped
• 1 small bunch of green onions, sliced -or- 2 whole shallots, thinly sliced
• 1 tbsp ground, toasted rice

1. In a dry skillet over high heat, toast the rice until it becomes very tan in color and fragrant. Allow the rice to cool, then grind in a food processor or blender and set aside.

2. Make the dressing in a bowl by combining the lime juice, fish sauce, and chilis or curry paste and stir to blend well.
3. In a skillet or wok over high heat, stir-
   fry the chicken with the lemongrass in about 1/4 cup of water. Break any clumps into small pieces and cook until it is firm and no longer pink, drain off any excess water and return to the pan.

4. Stir the cilantro, onions, ground rice, and dressing into the chicken and serve with Jasmine rice, cucumber salad, and lettuce or cabbage leaves to wrap it in.

Cucumber Salad

• 2-3 cucumbers, peeled, cut lengthwise into quarters, then into thin slices

• 1 tbsp rice vinegar
• 1 tbsp sugar
• 2 tbsp fresh cilantro, roughly chopped
• 2 carrots, thinly sliced into strips
• 2-3 green onions, sliced -or- 1 small shallot, thinly sliced
• 2 cups of cold water

1. Dissolve the sugar in the vinegar in a large bowl.

2. Toss the cucumbers, carrots, onions, and cilantro in the vinegar, then pour in the water and stir to combine.

Stir-Fried Pineapple* with Ginger

• 1 fresh pineapple, peeled and trimmed and cut into large dice

• 1 tbsp vegetable oil
• 2 garlic cloves, peeled and chopped
• 2 shallots, peeled and chopped
• 1 2″ piece of fresh ginger, peeled and finely shredded
• 2 tbsp light soy sauce
• juice of 1/2 a lime
• 1 large, resh red chili pepper, seeded and finely shredded

1. Heat the oil in a skillet or wok and stir-fry the garlic and shallots over medium heat until just golden, careful not to burn them or they’ll turn bitter.

2. Add the pineapple and stir-fry until the pineapple begins to caramelize to a golden brown color around the edges.
3. Add the ginger, soy sauce, lime juice, and chili, and stir to combine, cook for an aditional 2-5 minutes and serve.

   * if desired, you can use peaches, nectarines, or mangoes instead of pineapple - 3-4 of each

Jasmine Flower Syrup

• 1/2 cup water

• 5 tbsp sugar (palm sugar or light brown sugar work nicely also)
• 20 - 30 fresh jasmine flowers, plus a few extra for decoration if you like

1. Heat the water and sugar in a small pan until the sugar dissolves, then simmer for 4-5 minutes.

2. Pour the syrup into a small bowl and allow to cool slightly, then gently stir in the jasmine flowers and steep for at least 30 minutes then strain the flowers out, gently pressing to extract as much syrup as possible.

   Serve this syrup drizzled over fresh fruit, use it to sweeten tea, or make a flavored soda by adding a shot of it to a glass of crushed ice and club soda.

This is why I chronicle excerpts of my life in this blog, because it is great fun to go back and read things I’ve written and get the luxury of now being completely detatched from those feelings, rereading them on a clean slate and wondering what I was thinking and feeling at that time. Quite the head trip. For instance:

23rd-Jan-2006 08:42 pm

I think and feel myself into being totally overwhelmed by the inertia of life now and then, usually generated from too much introspection. This is generally a good thing as it brings self awareness and validation via dragging yourself through the indignity of being your own worst enemy, but not so good when you feel fragile and weak and low. It happens to us all, and I try very hard to look for the blessing in it and not be sucked under by the hopelessness of it, because that is very easy to do if you cannot remain vigilant and determined. Right now the blessing is that I’m not having to be anything to anyone, being that it is almost midnight on a Sunday and there’s no one awake but me, so my timing for this is pretty good all things considered. I know that in some way I am still in control of my emotions and that in and of itself is reassuring to me. And yes, I am crying because the safest time for me to do this is when I am alone and there’s no one around to see it and make me more uncomfortable by trying to console me or fix what might appear broken. It is so ridiculous to me, the one thing my instincts tell me to sprint into action for others is the very thing I eschew for myself. It is possibly my most hypocritical trait, and I loathe that about myself, but again - it is the truth and I see no reason to lie about it. Part of what I treasure most about myself is my ability to speak freely about my faults and insecurities

I go through these periods of looking at the good things I do for others and all of the joy that it brings me, because I truly believe it is what I am best at. There’s just no balance because I don’t know how to accept having the same done for me in return. It panics me into feeling out of control and makes me feel like I’m a consummate failure somehow. Like a bomb is about to go off somewhere and I have nowhere safe to hide and I cannot round up the people around me fast enough to get them to safety. It is something I’ve had to grow into living with. I used to cut myself until the blood would run and I’d get snapped into feeling something real and I could find focus that way, but I haven’t done that in years and have zero desire to do that anymore. It doesn’t wash over me in that same all-consuming way that it used to and I feel differently now that I’ve grown older. Part of what is so great to me about getting older is the discovery I occasionally get to make about myself where I confront a thing about me that I’ve spent a lifetime throwing energy at JUST to realize that the energy is wasted and I cannot reclaim any of it. It’s ridiculously fruitless, and I detest wasting my energy. It is ten times more difficult getting back the energy you waste and it ends up being this vicious cycle of alternating self delusion and self indulgence, and really - what sane person wants that? Who the fuck has the TIME for it?

9th-May-2005 09:29 am

I may pretend otherwise every now and then, but I do get my feelings hurt on rare occaisions and it’s harder to let that sort of thing go when I do because it sticks with me longer and therefore requires a longer let-go time. I’m not good at hiding my emotions, but I’m a master at covering up my hurt. I learned a long time ago out of necessity how to do that, so at this point in my life it has become second nature. I can sit at the dinner table eating my ba
nquet of frustration without complaint, and smile at you while underneath I’m pinching myself so hard I draw blood, and even though I never do that sort of thing anymore it doesn’t change the fact that I can. You can look me all over on the outside and not find a single scratch on me, but just turn me inside out once in a blue moon and I’m in pieces.

21st-Jun-2004 01:52 am

In Andalusia, one of the many delicacies they produce is called Mojama. It is dry cured loin cut of tuna, and it is something almost no one (besides those seriously into epicurean rareities) really knows about outside of Spain. It is cured in the same way, with salt and hot coastal breezes, since at least the Arab Conquest. Today, I feel like the tuna that stay tethered to their hooks in deep, cold, blue, fathomless waters, destined to be Mojama. Someone, somewhere, wants to come along sooner or later and gut me, rub salt into the exposed wounds, and leave me hanging out to dry in pieces. They want to consume me whole, make me disappear. And though I know this, know that they are going to try just because they can, I’m just tethered to this hook and cannot get away. So I wait to see just who my executioner is going to be, imagining their face and what their hands might feel like lustily slicing into my flesh. Imagining the surprise on their face when they get careless and cut themselves instead…

Some people wear their haloes too tight. I’d made a list a few years ago, and that last line made it on the list I gave to my old friend Toni who reminded me of it today. It made me think of something else It really is damn near impossible to take some folks seriously, no matter how hard they may try. Especially those who come at you smiling, knife in one hand and your throat in the other, just waiting to hang you out in the sun to dry.

2nd-Aug-2003 10:01 am

I thought up a single line earlier while lying in my bed before the baby woke me up. I knew I was going to write a very long journal entry, but I wanted one line - one slice through my skin that gave a glimmer of the red ink inside to encompass it all.

So here it is. It is always the wound you cannot see that feels bigger than the one you can.

13th-Apr-2003 01:28 am

I feel it is almost impossible to achieve (let alone sustain) anything resembling joy lately. What I think is happy is really fleeting in my head - except for the things that remain a constant. I suppose I’m dissatisfied with life as it is now. Don’t take it personally you-know-who, I’m not even talking about you and besides - I’ve already told you that you worry too much. I chalk this all up to the change of seasons and my allergies, the weather being inconsistent and downright disagreeable, and the fact that I’ve had painfully illustrated yet again my belief that there are no absolutes and conversely few accidents.

Today I walked down the field of memory that exists somewhere in my head, and revisited places that I remembered as the happier points of what passed for a childhood. Yeah, I know, my childhood sucked - so did yours, blah blah fucking blah… It’s an old story and an even older exercise in self indulgence to glorify it. Thing is, if I spend any amount of time recalling what good things I can retrieve from my past, they get convoluted with the things that were… What were they… Twisted? Horrifying? Who can say. Sometimes I think the stuff I carry around of my past, if for no other reason than because out of habit I don’t know what else t
o do with it, I don’t keep for the juxtaposition of my happier days. I’m aware of it, but it feels like it is someone else. I’m completely disconnected, even though I’m aware of most of it. I say this having posted just this morning about what a good mood I was in. That’s one of the many pluses of being bi-polar/manic depressive, though - you have one high, and you forget the low that’s coming. But believe me, that bitch is in the mail somewhere. You’re licking the stamp for it and you don’t even know it because you’re too “up” and “happy”.

Man, I’d give anything to right now be sitting at a bar with no one else around, a bottle of Glenlivet scotch, a Baccarat highball glass with two cubes of ice in it, a fresh pack of Camel Wides, and a silver Zippo. And a jukebox playing nothing but the songs whose lyrics are being dissected throughout this post. I want God to be real, and I want him to come into the bar and sit next to me so I can spit in his face and then give him my bar tab so I can say “You owe me more than this, but it’s a decent start.” and then walk out feeling better.

I’ve been using the Semagic client exclusively for a long time now to make all of my posts, so long in fact that I cannot remember using the update portal. Recently a friend posted about a problem all of us who blog have had at one time or another, writing up a big post and then the web interface you’re using to post with eats the post and it is gone forever. Having that happen to me once was what led me to seek alternatives for posting to LJ, and in my search I found what IMHO is the best client for this purpose.

A lot of people still don’t know about client software and just how much easier it makes blogging, so I’m writing this to clear some of that up. I’m linking to several pictures I have uploaded as well, screenshots to illustrate what I’m talking about. I’d post them here, but that would be a huge pain in the ass so I’ll just link to them.

You can auto-login when you open the client, or set it to hide your password and only login when it is given. Multiple users can run the client, it repsonds individually to logged in users. This is a screenshot of my Semagic client open, configured for me. This client is infinitely customizable, you make it work for YOU. What I’ve done is to set options for general, editor, and view, and save. You can even make bullets or numbered lists. If you have a paid account, you can upload images to your scrapbook galleries (here’s the upload interface).

One of the best features in this client is the ability for users to create their own Macros. You copy/paste something, assign it a command or hot key, (like Ctrl + C = copy, Ctrl + V = paste) and it pastes whatever you tell it to paste. You also have a Macros toolbar button that catalogues your macros for easier access. By simply highlighting the text in your entry and chosing a button in the toolbar to click on, you can change the size, color, font, and alignment. The code is generated around the highlighted text, and you can confirm the changes befo
re posting by clicking the Preview button which opens the post in a browser window before posting. VERY handy. Editing your last entry or choosing to edit a recently posted entry is a lot easier now as the client retrieves the entry from the site and allows you to edit it in the main window if you choose (Options/History). You can make lj-cuts much easier, as well as posting usernames (toolbar button) - same feature available for communities. There’s a fly out menu for posting to communities. You have security options in another flyout, and can set defaults for them as well. Choose your icon from icon keywords in yet another flyout, as well as tagging your entries.

This post is all about helping others, so by all means please pimp it out and share with others. Not all of us are as proficient in this stuff, so I’m happy to handwalk those in need of it by sharing a good thing. Link directly to this post if you want to, help your friends out. If you’re a Semagic user and think I have left out anything I should include here, kindly comment away and I’ll edit to include anything necessary. This post, like all of the others, is taggable by anyone for future reference. A list of my tagged entries can be found here, as well as in the bottom left sidebar of my layout.

It’s about time, huh? This one’s all about Spring Cleaning. Enjoy.

I love the internet, I swear I do. I went looking for info on poppers, and boy did I find it. Everything from this, to this. There are even blogs offering tips and first time stories, even a comic character for fuck’s sake!

Did you know there’s even a song about poppers? It’s hilarious! Truly demented fags & hags will LOVE this.

Cookie & Cashetta - Just A Quick Sniff Of Poppers

This is the muthaload music post, folks. 92 MP3’s in 9 .zip files, 410MB worth - all for you.

• Allison Moyet - Invisible (this was the song for every forlorn person at every Jr. High prom who had to sit on the side and watch the love of their life slow dance with someone else they hated, or maybe that was just me)

• Bauhaus - Severance (Dead Can Dance cover)
• Bauhaus - Silent Hedges
• Bruce Cockburn - Lovers In A Dangerous Time (The precursor to the Barenaked Ladies cover)
• Christian Death - Jesus, Where’s The Sugar? (from the album Sex And Drugs And Jesus Christ, the cover of which was Jesus shooting heroin - I had it on vinyl and got the poster free with the album)
• Christian Death - Tales Of Innocence
• Christian Death - The Luxury Of Tears
• Cocteau Twins - Crushed (from the amazing 4AD compilation album Lonely Is An Eyesore, my favorite CT song)
• Cocteau Twins - Ivo
• Concrete Blonde - Crystal Blue Persuasion (Tommy James & The Shondells cover)
• 

• Concrete Blonde - I’ll Chew You Up & Spit You Out (alternate take of Still In Hollywood)

• Concrete Blonde - Still In Hollywood (best heard REALLY loud while jumping all over your bedroom and pissing off your parents)
• Dead Can Dance - Cantara
• Dead Can Dance - Rakim
• Depeche Mode - Somebody (the definitive “I wished someone felt like that about me” song)
• Depeche Mode - Stripped (Live) (from the 101 live double album, I saw this tour and made out with some cute random girl during this song. I was high okay, don’t look at me like that!)
• dif jūz - No Motion (pronounced “diffuse”, another track from the amazing 4AD compilation album Lonely Is An Eyesore, it makes me imagine I’m flying)
• dif jūz - Soarn
• Echo & The Bunnymen - Lips Like Sugar
• Icicle Works - Whisper To A Scream (Birds Fly)
• 

• Information Society - Repetition

• Jane’s Addiction - I Would For You (seeing them do this live on the first Lollapalooza tour with Perry Farrell naked was almost a religious experience)
• Jane’s Addiction - Jane Says
• Joy Division - Atmosphere
• Joy Division - Dead Souls
• Joy Division - Love Will Tear Us Apart
• Lone Justice - Dixie Storms (first heard after I moved far away from home, and it wrecked me)
• Lone Justice - Shelter
• Lords Of The New Church - Like A Virgin (Madonna cover)
• Lords Of The New Church - Method To My Madness
• 

• Lords Of The New Church - Pretty Baby Scream

• Love And Rockets - Lucifer Sam (Pink Floyd cover)
• Love And Rockets - All In My Mind (Acoustic Version) (I talked a friend of mine out of suicide while we listened to this song)
• Love And Rockets - Haunted (When The Minutes Drag)
• Madonna - The Look Of Love (my favorite Madonna song, from the Who’s That Girl soundtrack)
• Morrissey - Break Up The Family
• Morrissey - Tomorrow
• New Order - Elegia (featured in the movie Pretty In Pink)
• New Order - Touched By The Hand Of God (my favorite NO song)
• Ocean Blue - Ballerina Out Of
  Control

• 

• Peter Gabriel - Don’t Give Up

• Peter Gabriel - In Your Eyes (12″ Extended Remix) (in my opinion, the most perfect song ever written)
• Peter Gabriel - Mercy Street
• Peter Gabriel - Red Rain
• Peter Murphy - Cuts You Up
• Peter Murphy - Final Solution (Club Mix) (from Peter’s first post Bauhaus/post Dali’s Car solo album Should The World Fail To Fall Apart)
• Pray For Rain - Taxi To Heaven (from the Sid & Nancy soundtrack)
• R.E.M. - (Don’t Go Back To) Rockville (most of my extended family live in and around Rome, Ga. To get there, I have to drive through Rockville.)
• R.E.M. - Driver 8
• R.E.M. - So. Central Rain (I’m Sorry) (I remember when they did this live on Letterman!)
• 

• Sinéad O’Connor - I Am Stretched On Your Grave (Apple Brightness Mix)

• Sinéad O’Connor - Jerusalem
• Sinéad O’Connor - You Cause As Much Sorrow (When I was underage, I used to sneak in to a queer bar in the middle of nowhere. One night during a drag show, one of the queens dared me backstage to do boy drag to this song, as I had the shaved head & combat boots. I got my acoustic guitar out of my trunk, did it, and made almost $100 in tips which we drank in beer & Jager shots later. I became a very shortlived fixture in these shows, and it was fun.)
• Siouxsie & The Banshees - Bring Me The Head Of The Preacher Man (from the Hyaena album, which I also had on vinyl)
• Siouxsie & The Banshees - This Unrest (for me, the definitive S&TB song)
• Suzanne Vega - Freeze Tag (the first song I heard by her on her first album, which I wore out)
• Suzanne Vega - Small Blue Thing
• Tears For Fears - Mad World
• Tears For Fears - Pharoahs (B-side to the single Everybody Wants To Rule The World)
• Tears For Fears - Sea Song (B-side to the Head Over Heels single, Songs From The Big Chair outtake)
• 

• Tears For Fears - When In Love With A Blind Man (companion piece to The Working Hour, a Songs From The Big Chair outtake)

• The Bolshøi - A Way (from their second album Friends, I saw them open for Love And Rockets on the Express tour)
• The Bolshøi - Books On The Bonfire
• The Bolshøi - Romeo In Clover
• The Bolshøi - Sunday Morning (my favorite Bolshøi song)
• The Cult - Love Removal Machine
• The Cult - Rain
• The Cult - She Sells Sanctuary
• The Cure - The Exploding Boy (originally on the Concert & Curiousity album, only available on vinyl for many years and very rare)
• The Cure - Sinking
• 

• The Damned - Alone Again Or ( cover)

• The Damned - The Shadow Of Love
• The Jazz Butcher Conspiracy - Still In The Kitchen (David J [Bauhaus, The Sinister Ducks, Love & Rockets, club DJ] played with TJBC for a short time)
• The Jesus & Mary Chain - Cut Dead
• The Pogues - Haunted (the original version, not the one featuring Sinéad O’Connor)
• The Sisters Of Mercy - Lucretia My Reflection (my favorite SOM song
  )

• The Sisters Of Mercy - This Corrosion
• The Sisters Of Mercy - Under The Gun (featuring Terri Nunn of Berlin)
• The Smiths - Half A Person (my favorite Smiths song)
• The Smiths - There Is A Light That Never Goes Out
• 

• The Sundays - Wild Horses (Rolling Stones cover)

• This Mortal Coil - I Must Have Been Blind (Tim Buckley (father of Jeff) cover)
• This Mortal Coil - Morning Glory (another Tim Buckley cover)
• This Mortal Coil - Song To The Siren (yet another Tim Buckley cover)
• Thompson Twins - If You Were Here (the song from the end of Sixteen Candles, my favorite TT song)
• ’til tuesday - Coming Up Close (my favorite TT song, it still breaks my heart)
• ’til tuesday - What About Love
• Tracy Chapman - Baby Can I Hold You (Neil Diamond cover)
• Tracy Chapman - Fast Car (love love LOVE this song)
• Wild Swans - Bible Dreams
• XTC - Dear God (this song was part of my awakening)
• 

It’s funny listening to some of these songs now, they don’t feel the same anymore. This, and a lot more, was the score to my shitty youth. Hope you dig it if you haven’t heard a lot of it, and if you’re revisiting some of these songs for the first time in years I hope it’s a happy reunion.

I love Korean food, there’s something very comforting and satisfying about it. To me, it is the soul food of all Asian cooking. In particular I love bulgogi, which is a sweet and savory beef stir fry that is marinated in soy, sesame oil, sugar, green onion, garlic, and a secret that surprised me when I first found out about it. Part of the marinade uses kiwi fruit. Like papaya, it has a natural enzyme that tenderizes the meat and imparts a delicate flavor as well. In Argentina, they marinate steaks in the skins of papayas for the same reason. With the bulgogi, I always have kimchi, which is a kind of pickle traditionally made from cabbage but can be made from cucumber, turnip, daikon, or any number of vegetables as well. I like the cucumber kimchi, but the cabbage is my favorite. The cabbage is first salted for several hours, then marinated in a mixture of chili pepper, garlic, ginger, onion, and other seasonings. In Korea as well as Thailand and other Southeastern Asian countries, meat and vegetables are wrapped in lettuce leaves and eaten that way, which is sometimes done with bulgogi as well. If you’re not up for the task of making your own kimchi, it can sometimes be found in grocery stores - usually Asian markets or specialty stores. Also, if there’s a Korean restaurant nearby it can also be purchased there as a side item. I personally think that homeade is better, plus it’s always fun trying something new.

Kimchi (Korean Pickled Cabbage)

• 1 or 2 Napa (Chinese) cabbages, depending on how much kimchi you plan to make
• 5-10 green onions
• Sea salt or other non-iodized salt, about 1 cup
• 4 heaped tablespoons Korean chili powder (available at Asian markets)
• 2-3 cloves garlic, crushed
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1 tablespoonful fish sauce (optional, but it helps authenticate things)
• 1″ to 2″ piece of fresh ginger, peeled and chopped fine (I like a lot of ginger, personally)
• Half an onion, cut into thin slices (optional)

1. Cut the cabbages into quarters, then lengthwise into 1-2″ segments, discard root end. Wash the cabbages and shake the pieces dry, then place the cut pieces into a container or plastic bag (a small cooler with a lid works best). Salt the cabbage, mix the salt in well with your wet hands and squeeze it into the cabbage to initiate fermentation. Cover the cabbage and allow it to rest at room temperature for at least 6 hours or overnight, stirring occaisionally.

2. Remove the cabbage to a coander and drain, then rinse under cool water and return the cabbage to its container. Add the remaining ingredients and mix well with your hands. I reccommend wearing gloves for this, but stirring well will also get the job done. Cover the fresh kimchi and allow it to marinate for at least a day and up to four days in the refridgerator.

Kimchi makes great fried rice and is very interesting in soups. I’ve even put it on hamburgers and had it in place of coleslaw, but I’m a big fan so take that with a grain of the salt. You can also make excellent savory kimchi pancakes with a soy-rice vinegar dipping sauce from leftover kimchi.

Bulgogi (Korean Beef Stir Fry)

• 1 lb. sirloin steak, or any lean cut of beef, sliced thinly (freeze it for about 15-20 minutes for easier slicing)
• 1 kiwi, peeled and pureed or mashed well with a fork
• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1 bunch green onions, cut into 2″ sections
• 1 large onion, cut into slices
• 2-4 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
• 2-3 tablespoons sesame oil
• 1 tsp black pepper

1. Place the beef in a sealable container and set aside.

2. Combine all remaining ingredients in a separate bowl and stir to mix well, dissolving the sugar. Pour the marinade over the beef, st
   ir it well to coat all slices and marinate in the refridgerator for several hours or overnight.

3. Drain the beef from the marinade, reserving the marinade. Heat 1-2 teaspoons vegetable oil in a large skillet or wok over high heat. When the oil is shimering, add the beef and stirfry until it almost reaches your desired level of doneness, adding reserved marinade as necessary to make a thick sauce.

I serve the bulgogi with sticky rice, stir fried veggies, lots of kimchi, and good, cold beer. I eat the bulgogi and the kimchi together, one piece of each for every bite.

SO. FUCKING. GOOD.