One of the things that I look forward to every month is volunteering at an orphanage. This month, we prepared a barbecue feast for the kids and they absolutely adored it. Every time an order of meat was ready the kids were quick to yell out for more, "Kogi, Kogi, Kogi." Whoever was serving meat had their name changed to Kogi since that was all they kept asking for. Oh, that and sanchu, leaves for wrapping the meat. I thought this was quite interesting that the kids would ask for leaves. I don't think any kids in the states would ask for greens. Anyway, that day, I made some carrot kimchi. Although it was a bit too salty, they were really good in the beef and leaf wraps. It was very easy to make as well and I will probably end up doing it again. The carrots were just julienned and then I added salt to pull out the water for a while. Afterwards, I made a sauce with fish sauce, garlic, sugar, soy sauce, and red pepper flakes. I then rinsed off all the salt off the...

Once a month, I volunteer with a group to go to an orphanage to cook lunch for the kids. The kids are super sweet and I really enjoy cooking for them and playing with them. It's also fun to see what kinds of food Korean children like and dislike. This time, we decided to do something a little different. Here it is: the deep-fried, rice-battered hotdog It is sorta like a corndog, but instead of a flour and cornmeal batter, you have rice that has been flavored with bits of carrot and red bell peppers. This rice is packed around the hotdog that has been impaled with a chopstick and rolled in a panko breading before deep fried. Here's a ring of them. It's not bad. It's like fried rice on a stick with a meaty center. The kids loved them. The inventor of this food is my good friend Hoya. You can read her blog (in Korean) at  http://www.hoyacooks.com/ Dan

Instead of spending Christmas at an expensive hotel, I decided to go to an orphanage on the outskirts of Seoul to help prepare lunch. Christmas dinner isn't what you might expect, but we did have mash potatoes, turkey with grazy, and cranberry sauce. To this we added panini pizza, pickled radish, and pasta. So...do you think Korean children like turkey and mashed potatoes? Well...they liked the mashed potatoes, but they didn't really care so much for the turkey. The big hit of the day was pizza and pasta. They kept on asking for seconds. Here they come. One was left outside, but we brought him in. Here is one volunteer making pizza. Merry Christmas everyone!