Sunshine vitamin may mitigate muscle and joint pain in breast cancer patients

A University of Washington study found that breast cancer patients on aromatase inhibitors (estrogen-lowering drugs) who also took 4,000 international units (IU) of vitamin D per day and 50,000 IU of vitamin D per week experienced significantly less musculoskeletal pain than women taking only 4,000 IU per day and a placebo. The high weekly dose of the fat-soluble vitamin was very beneficial to patients.

Careful Vitamin D dosing can help women maintain bone and muscle mass which might otherwise be lost due to estrogen reduction whether it's caused by menopause or breast cancer treatment. (Photo by Pascal Thauvin, Creative commons photos from sxc.hu)

For more information about the study and its implications, read Sunshine vitamin may mitigate muscle and joint pain in breast cancer patients

Gwangju Kimchi Festival 2011

Whet your appetite for Gwangju's 2011 Kimchi Festival by watching these videos from prior festivals. If you want to go, it will be held from October 15-19 near Jungoe Park. For more info, go to the KTO (Korea Tourism Organization) page. 

Secret Recipe Club: Raspberry Ssamjang (라즈베리 쌈장)

I have this obsession of taking every non-Korean recipe and trying to put a Korean spin on it. When I have a "eureka" moment, the result is published here.

Just a suggestion: Serve this sauce with some grilled Korean barbecue and lettuce or large leafy herb (깻잎 kkaennip/shiso/perilla shown here) for a low-carb lunch or dinner. (Tammy Quackenbush photo)

My current "eureka" moment comes from a recipe posted on a site called  Amy's Cooking Adventures. I took her Spicy Raspberry Sauce and transformed it into a Koreafornian concoction Raspberry Ssamjang. (Thanks to the Secret Recipe Club.)

Ssamjang (쌈장) is a spicy paste made from fermented soybean paste (된장 doenjang), red pepper paste (고추장 gochujang), sesame oil and seasonings such as green onion and garlic. Ssamjang is sold in most Korean grocery stores in small or large green tubs. If you don't read Korean, just look for the green tubs. 

Ssam is Korean for "wrapping";  jang, for sauce. So ssamjang is a sauce made for flavoring leaves for wrapping around food.

Ssam show and tell: A kkaennip leaf is smeared with raspberry ssamjang and topped with grilled spicy Korean chicken. (Jeff Quackenbush photo)

For barbecued and grilled foods, Koreans will take a piece of or whole leaf of lettuce or a broad-leafed herb such as 깻잎 kkaennip (perilla in English), spread some ssamjang on it, top with meat and rice, and pop it in their mouths like a small bite-sized sushi roll.

This isn't the first ssamjang I've made that excluded the basic doenjang, gochujang and sesame oil combo. In May I developed Peanut Ssamjang. Now, with the Raspberry Ssamjang, I have the makings for a weird peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

The combination of the pectin in the raspberry jam and the cornstarch thickened the sauce nicely, thick, yet spreadable. If you leave out the cornstarch it would still be thick and saucy enough to cling to your lettuce wrap.

Raspberry Ssamjang (라즈베리 쌈장)

1 teaspoon olive oil
1 small jalapeno, seeded and finely chopped
2 tablespoon onion, finely chopped
1 clove minced garlic (for more zip, use 5-6 cloves)
½ cup water
1 teaspoon chicken bouillon
1 cup fresh raspberries or sugar free raspberry jam
Salt and pepper to taste
1 teaspoon cornstarch (optional, if using jam)
4 tablespoon kkaenip, chopped

Directions

1. Heat the olive oil in a small saucepan. Add the jalapeno, onion, and garlic. Cook until the onion is tender, or five to eight minutes.
2. Add ½ cup of water to the pan, and whisk in the chicken bouillon. Add the raspberries — I had sugar-free jam on hand – and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer for 10 minutes to reduce the sauce.
3. Add salt and pepper. Whisk in the corn starch. Continue to cook until the sauce has thickened.
4. Remove the pot from heat. Stir in the kkaenip. (The original recipe called for mint, but the flavor of kkaenip is between that of mint and basil.)
5. Serve with the grilled Korean BBQ of your choice, such as bulgogi or dakkalbi.

Review: Korean Village Wooden Charcoal BBQ House, San Francisco

The restaurant was nearly empty when we sauntered in at 1:45 p.m. on a Sunday afternoon. Two men were engaged in an animated conversation in a Chinese language at a table on the opposite side of the restaurant, their words echoing off the walls and the mirror that stretched the length of one side of the restaurant and over the din of the sports color commentators on the big-screen TV.

Because of the name of the restaurant, we ordered broiled 불고기 bulgogi and broiled barbecued chicken (닭구이) from the lunch menu, which bundles the items with 밥 bap (rice), 반찬 banchan (side dishes) and a bowl of soup. Both entrees were $9.99 each.

The banchan were typical Korean restaurant fare: baechu kimchi, lightly pickled cucumbers, marinaded soybean sprouts,  marinaded mung bean sprouts, soy sauce–brined jalapeños, and two kinds of daikon kimchi (one was fresh and the other was made from dried daikon). They were tasty but not surprising.

Miyukguk, a simple Korean seaweed soup (Tammy Quackenbush photos)

The surprise for us were the small bowls of 미역국 miyukguk, which is a Korean seaweed soup made with wakame in a simple broth. Of all the soups in Korea's culinary repertoire, few are more Korean than miyukguk. I have to give the restaurateurs credit for serving such a bold, unusual dish to a couple of non-Koreans, since many non-Koreans are still somewhat squeamish about seaweed in its leafy form.

Korean women recovering from childbirth are served this soup morning, day and night for the first couple of weeks after giving birth. Some Korean women are also compelled by well-meaning relatives to eat lots of it leading up to childbirth, since is it believed to purify the blood and help women with lactation.

The waitress set the bowls down, I looked at my husband and said "Happy Birthday," though neither of us have a birthday coming. He doesn't like seaweed in soup or 김밥 kimbap (sushi).

"It's good for me, right?" he asked me while stirring the leaves and looking skeptically into the bowl. He ended up liking the flavor of the soup.

The service was prompt. The waitress took our order shortly after we sat down and brought the banchan, rice and soup within a few minutes. The bulgogi and grilled chicken arrived a few minutes after that.

The bulgogi was quite dry, and the smoke flavor from the real wood oven was pronounced. We dipped the meat in the miyukguk and wrapped it in moist rice, which helped.

The chicken, however, was moist, the "special house sauce" more obvious than on the bulgogi, and the smokiness more subtle. 

Korean Village Wooden Charcoal BBQ House, or Wooden Charcoal BBQ, is located in San Francisco's Inner Richmond neighborhood at 4609 Geary Blvd.

It is easy to find from Highway 1, commonly known as 19th Avenue, a major north-south thoroughfare on the west side of the city. If you're traveling north on 19th Avenue (coming north from San Francisco International Airport and San Jose on Interstate 280), turn right on Geary Boulevard. The restaurant will be on your right between 10th and 11th avenues.

Making left turns on a number of streets of San Francisco is difficult. If you are traveling south on Park Presidio (from Napa-Sonoma wine country and the Golden Gate Bridge), you can't turn left onto Geary. Travel a block south of Geary, turn right onto Anza, turn right at 14th Avenue then turn right a third time, onto Geary.

This restaurant is worth the hastle. Parking is available along Geary or side streets.

Geary Boulevard has a string of Korean shops, grocers and restaurants. Wooden Charcoal BBQ is about a block away from longstanding Korean barbecue master Brothers Restaurant and several blocks from the Korean establishments in Japantown.

Recipe: Noryangjin-inspired Poktanbap (폭탄밥) aka 'Bomb Rice'

Seoul-Suburban, one of my co-conspirators on Nanoomi.net, posted this comment about a new dish they discovered while exploring the neighborhood around the famous Noryangjin Fish Market:

I passed carts offering bibimbap, bulgogi hot dogs, deopbap, omurice, hamburgers, bokkeumbap, and something that one cart called poktanbap (폭탄밥), or ‘bomb rice.’

This last one was something new to me, so I definitely had to give it a try, especially as the sucker for anything that screams ‘spicy!’ that I am.

What I got was a decent-sized bowl of rice with ground beef, sesame oil, a slice of ‘cheese,’ a fried egg, two different kinds of dried seaweed, some fish roe, two generous dollops of gochujang, and a sprinkling of sesame seeds. Total cost: 2,000 won, less than a plate of tteokbokki will cost you at most stalls. A large serving is just an extra 500.

And how was it? Pretty much as you might imagine all those ingredients thrown together tasting – which is to say it falls squarely under the rubric of comfort food.

With a name and description like that, it's a dish I just had to try to recreate in my kitchen.

Two kinds of seaweed and flying-fish roe certainly bring the ocean to your bowl. (Tammy Quackenbush photo)

The fish roe is indispensable for the recipe. The snap of each egg as you chew creates a popping sound like that of firecrackers or crispy rice. I think Pokjukbap (폭죽밥), or "Firecracker Rice," may be a more accurate name for this fun, uncommon Korean comfort food.

Noryangjin-inspired Poktanbap (폭탄밥) aka "bomb rice"

(Makes 2 servings)

Ingredients

1.5 to 2 cups cooked rice
4 ounces ground beef
1 to 2 tablespoons sesame seed oil
2 slices American cheese*
3 sheets 김 kim, cut into thin strips
1 to 2 tablespoons wakamame seaweed
2 eggs, fried 
1 to 2 tablespoons fish roe (I used flying fish roe, which are very tiny.)
2 tablespoons gochujang

Directions

1. Cook 1 cup of rice according to the directions on your rice cooker, which will make 2 cups of rice once cooked.(Leftover rice is perfect for kimchi bokkeumbap)
2. Cook the ground beef in a skillet, seasoned with salt and pepper until it's completely cooked, about five to six minutes. Set aside.
3. Put ¹/₂ to ³/₄ cup of cooked rice in each bowl.
4. Place the cheese and cooked egg on top of the rice. 
5. Surround the egg and cheese with ground beef, kim, fish roe and gochujang.

*The processed stuff that comes wrapped individually in plastic. It's not very healthful, but it's "authentic." If you have access — and the money — to buy the good stuff, use it. I'd advise using a mild, subtle-flavored cheese though. This is not the recipe for trying out that sharp cheddar.

Please read more about the Noryangjin neighborhood on Seoul-Suburban and snoop around a little bit to discover other underexposed and under-appreciated areas of Seoul to visit vicariously.

Editor's note, Sept. 16, 2011: Joe McPherson of ZenKimchi Food Journal discovered  the beauty of Noryangjin's poktanbap booth for himself and reached an epiphany about the future of  street food. He also exposes the true incubator of Korean food trends.

Where are you going for Chuseok? I suggest Gangwon-do

"I got a week off for the Korean Chuseok Holiday, so I escaped from Seoul and took an express bus to Gangwondo Province. It took 4 hours. I visited three areas--Gangneung on the coast, Mt. Odaesan National Park, and Seoraksan National Park. I went alone, which was not a problem for me...."

For more information on this itinerary, go here.

My own Chuseok holiday trip to Sokcho and Gangneung were during the height of the Ganguneng submarine incident (which was also my first wedding anniversary) so I can't say my trip was as peaceful as hers but the combo of events occurring at the same time made the trip unforgettable.

I also went with my husband and the three other teachers from my small hagwon. This made what could have been a scary trip into a delightful one. Even though Korea is a relatively safe country, I can't, in good conscience, recommend a single woman going around traveling alone.

Help for putting your plates in their place

"It is valuable to know your place, even if that place is temporary." —Dune

Your plates, forks, spoons and glasses do not intuitively "know their place." Human hands must put them in their place. The conventional rules of the European/American formal dinner table can be so confusing. Now there's a guide for the perplexed.

The Kniggerich placemat, helping to re-establish European dinner etiquette. (Kniggerich Cheat Sheet Placemat by llot llov, photo from Charles & Marie)