Have You Ever Seen Pears So Big and Pumpkins So Small?1?!?!

We've had the good fortune of receiving gifts of food from our neighbors. I want to get these pics posted before I forget what everything is called.

First up, is Pulgolgi (Korean BBQ) Beef....courtesy of our landlord and his wife, who live two doors down. Now, it didn't sound exactly like "pulgolgi" when they were trying to tell us the name but it is the closest thing I  could find in my own research. It was simply marinated beef and sliced onions.

The instructions they gave for cooking was use high heat, not low. I'd say it was on the sweet side and definitely not spicy. We threw it together with some white rice and had a fabulous Korean meal. Our first actually, in our new house.

About a week later, as we were returning home after school, a Korean neighbor lady who is always full of smiles and very pleasant, handed Zane this...

 a dried squid. Now with us being new to Korea and not knowing much about the culture or the foods, we did not know exactly what to do with this gift. Unfortunately it stunk to high heaven so we decided to throw it away. I know that sounds awful but it is true. Perhaps if we receive another one someday, we'll get adventurous and try boiling it or something.

About a week later, the same lady gave us these two green items. (I just used the apple for size comparison.) She doesn't seem to speak any English so I graciously accepted but didn't know what I was accepting. A couple nights later, we had a Korean family stop by (that's a whole other story) and they were able to tell us they are pumpkins. I never would have guessed. They are so small and GREEN. But they told us to cut them up and cook them in a pan with a little oil. I haven't done that yet but might give it a shot tonight.

A couple nights ago, our landlord and lady stopped over with this sweet rice dish...



yak bap (not pronounced yak like the animal, more like 'yok bop'). Bap is the Korean word for rice. This dish was given to us still warm and has what looks like raisins (or dehydrated dates, or both) and pinenuts and perhaps honey and brown sugar or something similar to make it sweet. It was sticky and very tasty. As you can tell from the picture, we didn't waste any time digging into it.

Last night, our landlord and lady stopped over again, to give us 6 huge Asian pears. The Korean word for pear is pe, pronounced 'pay'. Again, I used the apple for comparison because these things are just ginormous! Brody and I ate half of one at lunch time today and it was very juicy and tasty. It has a slightly different texture than the pears back in the States, lighter I guess, is how I would describe it.