Reunion In The Kitchen

On Friday morning, most of the members of my Korean language class reassembled at our professor's apartment for a lesson in Korean cuisine. As this week has (sort of) seen the end of the rainy season and the true beginning of the "dog days" of summer, samgyetang, a.k.a. ginseng-chicken soup, was on the menu because it is a traditional dish that Koreans eat to help fight the heat. In fact, last Wednesday was Jung-Bok, the second of the official three hottest days of summer (as determined by the lunar calendar, I believe), when many Koreans eat samgyetang and bosintang, which I already covered on this blog. In addition to samgyetang, we also got a lesson in making kimchi and gimbap (a sort of Korean version of sushi). Afterwards, of course, we got to eat the fruits of our labor. It was nice to see everyone again and to share in the experience of preparing some of our favorite Korean foods. Who knew that our teacher could teach cooking as well as language?