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Sunday, October 30, 2011

Team HappyBear Eats Its Way Through North Jeolla Province

If this post never gets finished, it's because my stomach exploded and I dropped dead with a giant smile on my face.

Like the other members of Team Happy Bear (don't ask about the name), I spent every moment between 5:00 Friday morning and 7:30 Sunday night doing something related to food. You name it, we did it. Shopping. Buying. Harvesting. Killing. Seasoning. Slathering. Cooking. Debating. Discussing. Eating. Enjoying. Thanking. A full month's worth of preparations, tons of plans made and canceled and reworked, all came together for a crazy three-day, two-night bonanaza covering seven meals and several hundred kilometers. I'm too exhausted now to go into the details of what we ate and where, but I'll just say that the trip was a dream come true: me and four foodie friends getting chauffeured around, following traditional Korean food from farm to market to table (to belly), relishing in its simultaneous simplicity and complexity, exploring its endless reworkings of what often looks to the uninitiated like a limited sets of ingredients, and learning about the history, methods, and thought behind it all.

The next ten days will be filled with my attempts to recall, review, and recreate all the experiences that are still whirring about in my mind. Keep checking back - lots of interesting stuff to come!

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