Lunch Time Woes

It wasn't so bad at the beginning. I was eager to try new things and determined to keep an open mind. Suffice it to say, those day's are over. Korean lunch has become a monotonous blur of tofu, vegetables drenched in some kind of watered down pepper paste, and soup that consists of what I think must be the Korean equivalent of chicken broth.

First, the tofu. I've never been a big fan of tofu to begin with. But, we do have a couple teachers here that are vegetarians, so I think it's great that the school provides that option when vegetarianism hasn't been quite embraced here. However, we have tofu in some form, in some dish, literally every day. I actually don't even remember the last time we had beef of some sort. But seriously every day, tofu in the soup, tofu and vegetables, tofu in the noddles. I was thinking my current weight loss had to do with the regular exercise I have been doing, but mostly I think it's just from steering clear of most the lunch items everyday.

The next killer is the soup. Like I said, it wasn't so bad at first. I'm not entirely sure what the broth is based in, but it's the same... every day. Today, there was some pepper paste added to make it spicy and there was tofu (shocker) and kimchi in it. Yesterday, the broth was plain and there was tufu, yet again, seaweed, and bean spouts added. Earlier this week I had the pleasure of scooping some quail eggs into my bowl along with that super tasty broth.

I can think of 3 days in the 3 months that I've been here when I've actually gone back for seconds of something. Pasta day, which consisted of: pasta, tomato sauce, cheese, garlic bread, and of course, kimchi; Hot dog day: hot dogs complete with hot dog buns and ketchup, "cole slaw" (which was actually decent) and probably a tofu soup; And today we had some sort of very thinly sliced potatoes mixed with small pieces of ham and green onion. Regardless of not being sure what it was, it was delicious mixed with rice. These are the glory days.

In lieu of my school lunches though, there is a lot of Korean food that I do like and will actually miss when this year ends. I'm a fan of kimbop (which is like Korean sushi), bibimbop (in a nut shell it's is vegetables, rice, and egg mixed together with spicy sauce), the handmade dumplings, dokbokki (rice noodles in spicy sauce), and without a doubt, Korean BBQ. I also realize that school lunches are part of the experience and what I signed up for, but that still doesn't stop me from making a list of all the things I'll eat in the first week I come back to the US. At the top of that list: a real, big ass burger with bleu cheese and bacon, simply yogurt, and a pulled pork sandwich with real cole slaw and rough cut fries drenched in malt vinegar from Maxie's in Ithaca as soon as I can get there.