My goal this year was to travel more. I feel alive when I am on the move and I feel more motivated. I spent the day in Busan with a tour group eating and showing the sights of the city and I feel elated. Busan is a city full of energy and the food is top notch. When I looked down at the quality of the banchan before me, I realized that Seoul really needs to step up the quality. The kimchi here is crisp and full of flavor, the chilies feel like they have soaked up the sun and the fish is fresh and full of flavor. It's been a long day but a happy day of eating and sharing what I know about Korea with others. In one of the markets I visited, I had some fried snacks that where amazing. The oil had turned the batter around the stuffed chilies, shrimp and octopus into crystals that disintegrated at first bite. They even had some modern fried snacks such as American Tweggum which was mashed potatoes with onion that was battered and fried. LOL. I highly recommend you take a trip down to B...

Animal Head Shaped Steamed Bread While I visited the Busan International Film Festival, I also stopped in at the "Largest Department Store in the World." This store was the Shinsaegae and, according to the Guiness Book of World Records" it is a huge new department store that is across the street from the new film festival theatre. What I learned was that...well, people in Busan have very different tastes than in Seoul. Everything looks nice, but the flavors are a bit sweeter and a bit softer. Everything looked fine, but I can't say it was very tasty. The Sinsaegae in Seoul tends to have pretty good food. I would say very good for a department store. The food looked good and it looked western but it wasn't. For example: Ram Shaped Steamed Bread These steamed buns stuffed with meat or red bean looked very cute. I mean they were shaped like rams, rabbits, porcupines and pigs. They were even beautifully colored. The problem was that they weren't soft and p...

It's an intriguing idea. I wonder if other people have thought about it? Pieman in Korea , a baker and pastry chef down in Busan has been blogging his creations for a while. I have been following his stuff for awhile and I admire his creativity. Now this Frankenstein bread might be start of something new in the realm of baking. Dan Kimchi powered bread...kind of. I love sourdough bread... So much so that it was one of the first breads I introduced to our bakers. But for sourdough bread you need a starter. In the past I've used grape based and raw cabbage based starters. It's basically the natural white powdery yeast that cover grapes and cabbage leaves once used to consuming flour they go bananas and excrete lactic acid and CO2 which give the sourdough the tang and lift. So it was actually about a year ago while eating some very mature and sour shin kimchi that I thought if I can capture the yeast and eliminate the chili/garlic taste it would make the best starter...