Bo Ssam Deliciousness

I made this tasty Korean slow-roasted pork last weekend, but I haven't had the time to post the recipe until now.  Boy, is this one heck of a dinner.  David Chang sells Bo Ssam at his Momofuku restaurant in NYC for $200.  But you can easily make it at home for less than $20.  (Plus you'll have enough leftovers for almost a week's worth of meals.)  Warm, tender pork wrapped in lettuce leaves with brown rice and a spicy-sweet red chili sauce.  Mmmm ...

This isn't the type of recipe that you can whip up after work.  (I'm infamous for getting home, pulling out the recipe that I had planned for that night and screeching, "Marinate for TWO HOURS?! What?!")  Not only do you dry brine the pork overnight, but you also cook it for about six hours.  That being said, it's insanely easy.  I mean, Loren could probably cook it.  And look at him.

This is after he pulled the top of the pineapple out of the kitchen garbage.

Momofuku Bo Ssam (Serves 8)

For the pork:
-1 pork shoulder
-1/2 cup sugar
-1/2 cup salt
-1/4 cup brown sugar

For the red chili sauce:
-2 T fermented bean and chili paste (It's called ssamjang, and it's available at most Asian grocery stores)
-1 T red chili paste (Called kochujang.  Also readily available at most Asian grocery stores)
-1/2 cup sherry vinegar
-1/2 cup grapeseed oil

Accompaniments:
-lettuce leaves
-cooked brown rice
-kimchi
-shredded carrot

Raw meat ... not the most appetizing thing in the world

Place the pork butt in a large bowl or pan.  Rub the salt and sugar all over the meat, and then cover it with aluminum foil or saran wrap.  Refrigerate the meat for at least six hours, preferably overnight.

Preheat your oven to 300 degrees.  Remove the meat from the fridge and rub off any excess salt or sugar.  Place the pork in a roasting pan and in the oven.  Cook for six hours.

After the first hour of cooking

By the time the pork is finished, it should easily fall apart.  We're talking seriously tender meat here.  Blast your oven up to 500 degrees.  Rub brown sugar all over the roast and place it back in the oven for  10 to 15 minutes.  A nice caramel crust should form all over the roast.

After you take the roast out of the oven, allow it to rest for up to one hour.  In the meantime, prepare the  rest of the meal.

This stuff is AMAZING.  I want to put it on everything now.

Mix together the ssamjang, kochujang, sherry vinegar and oil in a small bowl.  Rinse your lettuce leaves, set out some kimchi and shred your carrots.

For some reason, Okinawan carrots are HUGE

When you're ready to eat, place your meat, lettuce, red pepper sauce, carrots, kimchi, brown rice, etc. on the table.  Each person shreds a little bit of pork off the roast and creates his/her own lettuce wrap.  Not only is it delicious, but it's also a lot of fun.  :)

The best part?  You'll have leftover pork for days.  I made a pork and sweet potato hash the next day, and we ate pulled pork potato latkes later that week.  And I STILL have some frozen pork stashed in the freezer.  Awesome.

Well, Typhoon Bolaven continues to rage outside my window.  The wind has picked up a bit, and the storm is getting a lot noisier.  We still have power, though, and there aren't any rogue trampolines or cars in our backyard yet.  Two more hours until we reach the brunt of the storm ...

Oh hai, Typhoon Bolaven

Riding out Typhoon Bolaven, Part I

Riding out a typhoon is a lot like being under house arrest.  (Minus the cool-looking ankle-bracelet.)  

Typhoon Bolaven is continuing his eastern Pacific jaunt, and we're still stuck inside our little concrete boxes on-base.  

We're all starting to become a little stir-crazy

It looks like Bolaven has lost some of his gusto, though.  It should hit Okinawa as a Category 3 hurricane at about 6 pm.  At its peak, Bolaven should be generating sustained winds of about 115 knots, with gusts of up to 140 knots. 

As for now, you can hardly even tell there's a storm outside

Being stuck inside means that I actually have time to tackle domestic affairs. I've already cleaned the house, made a total mess in the kitchen and cleaned the house again.  I also baked for the first time since I moved overseas.  

These peanut butter cookies don't have any flour or butter.  (But don't go eating an entire platter of them ... I'm pretty sure they're still unhealthy.  The cookies are basically just peanut butter and sugar.)  They're still pretty damn delicious, especially considering how few ingredients they contain.

Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Cookies (Makes 16-18 cookies)

-1 cup natural peanut butter (can be smooth or chunky, depending upon preference)

-2/3 cup sugar

-1 egg

-2 t vanilla extract

-1/3 cup chocolate chips

-sprinkle of sea salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix peanut butter, sugar, vanilla, egg and chocolate chips in a large bowl.  The dough should be thick and relatively sticky.

Roll the dough into small balls.  Place them onto baking sheet.  Gently press down on the dough with a fork, creating a criss-cross pattern.  Sprinkle the cookies with sea salt and sugar.

Bake for 10-14 minutes.  The dough will continue to brown a little after it's removed from the oven.

Wait until the cookies have cooled before handling them.  (They may appear a little crumbly at first, but if you just let them rest for a few minutes, they should firm up.)

Enjoy!

10,000 Eisa Dancers on Kokusai

No, I didn't get blown away in Typhoon Haikui -- sorry for the belated post.  I've been busy starting my new job as Field Office Coordinator at the Red Cross here at Kadena.  I love it so far!

Loren and I trekked to downtown Naha today for the 10,000 Eisa Dancers festival.  In true Loren-fashion, he didn't want to pay for parking in the city.  So we brought our bicycles, parked at Camp Kinser and pedaled about two miles down to Kokusai Street.

Loren prepping the bikes

Kokusai Street is the main shopping district in downtown Naha.  Shops line the sides of Kokusai -- it's a lot like Chicago's Miracle Mile.  The whole street was shut down for the Eisa dancers.

Eisa is a form of folk dancing that is unique to Okinawa.  There's a lot of chanting, drum-pounding and brightly-colored costumes.  The whole street just reverberates with the boom of the drums.  

The Eisa dancers range from toddlers to the elderly.  I loved watching parents following their children with video cameras and supplying them with water and juice whenever the parade stopped.  Adorable.  

Here's a hastily-edited video of some of the performances:

The weather was insanely hot. The parade-workers kept throwing water buckets onto the street to cool it off for the dancers.  But it was definitely worth the heat and subsequent bike ride back to Camp Kinser.  The parade was one of my favorite experiences so far in Okinawa!

The First Tri

I never thought I'd say this, but I finally tried the triathlon.  And you know what?  I actually enjoyed it! (Well, except for the swimming part, which was a lot like controlled drowning.  But we'll get to that later.)

Racking my bike pre-race.  Props to my talented photographer, Loren, who was there to document the event

Granted, this wasn't a full-length triathlon.  Or even a sprint.  But it was a nice first taste of the race.  Kind of like dipping your toes in the water.  The entire race consisted of a 200-meter swim, 5k bike and 1k (ha!) run.  There were no stinky men in the race, either.  Just women, teens and children.

THE SWIM

I've only been swimming since June, so my underwater skills aren't very developed.  But I still felt pretty confident about swimming 200 meters.  I mean, it's only 8 lengths of a 25-meter pool.  I can do that -- no problem!

I also take a zen-like approach to swimming.  I zone out while I'm in the pool.  Slow, purposeful pulls.  One, two, three, breathe.  One, two, three, breathe.

Swimming in a triathlon?  Nothing like that.  It's a thrashing mess of arms and legs.  Screw form.  Heck, screw breathing at any regular intervals.  One, two, three, SPLASH OF WATER INTO YOUR MOUTH.  One, two, KICK TO THE FACE, three, GASP FOR BREATH.

Loren was benevolent enough not to take any photos of me while I was actually swimming

The swim was honestly the hardest part of the entire race.  I took off, and it was immediately a free-for-all.  The water was choppy, and I could see the foot of the person in front of me kicking dangerously close to my face.  Meanwhile, I was hitting the woman next to me in the shoulder.  Utter chaos.

The entire time, I was thinking, "Where's the goddamn buoy where I turn around??"  I looked up from the water and realized it was still a good 25 meters away.  What a disheartening feeling.  There were a couple of times when I thought the 16 year-old lifeguard was going to have to pull my limp body from the pool.

But that final stretch of water felt glorious.  The end was in sight!  Just a few more strokes until ...

THE BIKE

I hopped out of the pool elated.  Sure, all of the other adult women were ahead of me.  But at least I didn't have to deal with that damn water anymore.

I ran barefoot down to the transition area and slipped into my running shoes.  I threw the helmet onto my head, picked up the bike and ran to the mounting area.  I had been really worried about my transition from swim to bike, but it didn't take as long as I expected.

Ugh, shoelaces.

One of Loren's friends was nice enough to loan me his wife's road bike for the race.  I'm so grateful that  I had it, because the race would have been miserable on my 1995 Specialized Stumpjumper.  Don't get me wrong, I love my bike.  But it's kind of like taking a Jeep to a Formula One race.  The road bike was so fast.  And at that point, I needed to catch up with everyone else.

In retrospect, the backless swimming suit was not a very flattering outfit choice

I felt great during the bike ride!  It was so nice to pass the people who had totally whomped me during the swimming portion of the race.

Wheeeeeeeee!

In retrospect, I wish that I would have pushed it a little more during the bike ride.  I feel like I could have gone a lot faster.  I slowed down to a crawl during some of the curves and lost valuable time.  (I'm still not the best at steering.  And if my car-driving abilities are any indicator, I probably won't get better at smoothly maneuvering anytime soon.)

I flew into the transition area and immediately forgot to get off my bike at the correct spot.  (Cue five young Marines yelling, "Dismount!  Dismount!")

I threw my bike back on the rack and almost took off running with my helmet still on my head.  (Cue five young Marines yelling, "Helmet!  Helmet!")  At that point, I was just so happy to have reached my favorite part of the race ...

THE RUN

I was almost done!

Because the running portion was only six-tenths of a mile, I tried to blast my way through it.  I powered out of the transition area, sprinted through the first bit of sidewalk and immediately hit a wet, grassy, muddy field.

Slosh, slosh, slosh

But heck, my feet were already pretty wet from the pool.  So I trudged on through the muck.  It felt really good to finally pass the older woman who had clobbered me during the swim.

Loren has been timing me during intervals, and I definitely credit Coach Russell for my speedy run.  Working with him, I'm beginning to figure out the difference between, "Hey, this sucks" and "Okay, this is impossible."  (Hint:  it's never impossible.)

I gave it my all and felt like my lungs were going to burst until I finally reached the finish line.

Just imagine the Rocky theme song playing in the background

Or at least I thought it was the finish line.  I ran down the chute and immediately started walking toward the sidelines until someone motioned to the real finish line, which was about five feet away.  Whoops.

Overall .... it wasn't too bad.  It was a nice preview to the sprint triathlon that I'm training for in September.  I got a nice feel for what transitions are like, and I definitely figured out my weakest areas. (Swimming.  Man, swimming sucks.)

I finished the entire course in 25:50.  Third place in my age group and sixth place overall.  Not great, but I'm glad that I did the triathlon.  And hey, I can only get faster now, right?

Done!

The little kids did their own mini-triathlon after the big race.  It was ADORABLE.  There is nothing in the world cuter than 3-6 year-olds racing in their own triathlon. It started with a 25 meter swim.

Look at them go!

Most of them wore lifejackets or little orange floaties.

A few of them got help from their moms and dads too

Then they rode their bicycles around the parking lot of Foster Pool.  A few of them still had training wheels, and one little girl was totally rocking a Strider bike.

Never before has a triathlon seen so many Hello Kitty helmets and sparkly handlebar streamers

Then the kids ran down the parking lot and through the finish line.  How awesome is that?  I could hardly tie my own shoes at that age, let alone race in a triathlon.

Overall, it was a great day.  I'm glad that the weather was still nice.  We have a typhoon headed our way, but the sky was perfectly clear this morning.  I'm not looking forward to prepping for the storm.  Loren and I still have to buy extra 'phoon food, and the Commissary is going to be a mess with people fighting over bottled water and palettes of canned green beans.  We're in TCCOR 3, which means that the typhoon is about 48 hours away.  (Here's a description of TCCOR levels.)

This is my first storm, but Loren dealt with a typhoon several weeks before I arrived on the island.  He says that they're not bad -- they're just like midwestern thunderstorms.  You get all worked up, and then the storm bypasses the island.  (And you still have to go to work the next day.  It's kind of like gearing up for a snow day, and then turning the t.v. on the next morning and finding out that you still need to go to school.)

So we'll see what happens.  Assuming we still have electricity, I'll keep you updated with the status of Tropical Storm Haikui.