Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Post-Korea Diet

I have often joked with my friends here that when I get back to the USA, the meals I'll be eating for the first month will leave people wondering if I am pregnant! We were discussing last week what foods we miss the most from our home countries, and I thought it might be amusing to make a list of the top ten foods that I have been craving over the past year:

1. Pretzils - they are one of my favorite snack foods, so naturally I have missed them greatly. I found a large bag once at Costco over here, but ate them far too quickly and have not been able to find any since.
2. Chicken noodle soup - I did find a can of Campbell's chicken noodle soup at the grocery store here once, and even though I dislike canned soup, I bought and consumed it. It just made me miss the real thing all the more.
3. Mint chocolate chip ice cream - the best I can find at the store is a non-dairy version that has a distasteful texture and odd flavor.
4. Brocoli casserole - my aunt makes the best brocoli casserole in the world, and the holidays of 2008 suffered greatly for the lack of this holiday staple.
5. Brocoli cheese soup in a bread bowl - one of my favorite things in the world to eat (even sans bread bowl), and it is nowhere to be found in Gyeongju!
6. Sour cream - several dishes that I have prepared over here would have been greatly enhanced if I could only have a mere dollop!
7. Quaker Oatmeal Squares - my favorite cereal, and sorely missed for the past year.
8. Grape Nuts - ditto
9. Corned beef - oh, how my mouth waters for a nice thick corned beef sandwich!
10. Liccorice - another favorite snack, and sadly, not a stick of it to be found.

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"Passage—immediate passage! the blood burns in my veins! Away, O soul! hoist instantly the anchor!
Cut the hawsers—haul out—shake out every sail!
Have we not stood here like trees in the ground long enough?
Have we not grovell’d here long enough, eating and drinking like mere brutes?
Have we not darken’d and dazed ourselves with books long enough?

Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only!
Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me;
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go, And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.

O my brave soul!
O farther, farther sail!
O daring joy, but safe! Are they not all the seas of God?
O farther, farther, farther sail!"

~Walt Whitman, "Passage to India"