Field Trip!

Last Monday while I was most fervently celebrating President's Day, I had the honor of taking a former student and her mother to a Korean market. It all started when she, a Hispanic student, surprised me by describing a Korean side dish of roasted seaweed speckled with salt. One day for lunch, I made 2 batches of rice and brought a whole packet of seaweed and we shared a lunch of seaweed "cigars". When I got a chance to talk to her and her mother after school, I enthusiastically offered to be their very own Korean tour guide to the market.

We met at the market and started in the produce aisle. I started off easy with unassuming lettuce, cucumbers, and then throwing in a packet of sesame leaf to wrap marinated meats in. Then I went in for the kill when I saw cute little Korean ladies offering samples of side dishes.

The first was RAW marinated squid in a spicy sauce-

Breath not bad enough? Try this spicy GARLIC stem!

When I saw this student reaching for packet of rice cakes, gushing, "Oh my gawd Ms. Won, I love these," my eyes glistened with pride. I told her that my mom would love her.

It was the most fun I had at a Korean market. The only problem was that she came to school next day, pale and frail, confessing how she felt sick from all the samples we tried. She went home early that day and threw up. And that was my first and last field trip to the Korean market.