Monday, December 24, 2007

I made bear food


Pemmican!
Originally uploaded by laurelfactorial
Better Half says it looks like bear poop.

Pemmican is easy, fun, and tasty.

(Click photo for more on the process.)

Thursday, December 20, 2007

OH MAN

A new restaurant just opened on Canyon, right in downtown Beaverton, called DJK Korean BBQ and Shabu Shabu. When I saw the sign about a month ago, I freaked out with joy. This is the one thing that I somehow never got around to in Hawaii, and I couldn't wait.

Well, I talked Better Half and Maternal Unit into going with me.

OH. MAN.

I think I've probably mentioned my quick method of assessing how good a restaurant is, but just in case: I like to be the only white person. That sounds unsavory when I read it now, but try not to think of it that way. I just mean that when I go and get "ethnic" food I like it to be authentic. Well, DJK did not disappoint. We were the only non-Korean people in the restaurant the whole time we were in there. Score one.

The service was good -- and the server spent some time showing us what to do. I didn't feel like a total oaf for not having been to a restaurant like that before. Score two.

The prices were really steep. Strike one. However, we could have (and probably should have) split an order of something, the portions were hunormous. Maybe we were ignorant white people, and you're supposed to split orders and the server was laughing into her sleeve the whole time. I don't know.

Every single thing was incredibly tasty. I loved all of the side dishes. As for meats, we got galbi (very good!), chadol gui (good), and... urr... I don't remember the third thing. But all of them were really, really good. There is something supremely delightful about piles of meat and piles of vegetables.

And no one got food poisoning! Hooray!

A+ would go back.

Thursday, December 13, 2007

The Merry Survivalist

Dinner tonight featured pemmican and dandelion buds (with an egg). Maybe I'll go have some hardtack!

Monday, December 10, 2007

Sea biscuit

Hardtack is fairly easy to make. I made a miniature batch from:

1 cup flour
1 tsp salt
Just enough water to form a slightly sticky dough (about 1/2 a cup)

Knead well. Roll out 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick. Cut into squares (3" on a side) or circles. Use a fork, toothpick, or chopstick to make some holes in each biscuit. Bake at 350 for 15 minutes, then turn heat down to 250 for 30 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool. Bake again (some say this works best if you do the second baking the next day) at 200 for 30 minutes.

There are many variants on the cooking times and temperatures. What's important is to cook them at least twice, and a low temperature is better than a high temperature.

As you can see from my expression, although these aren't as horrible as you have probably been led to believe, they aren't particularly good, either.