Yang Nyum Chicken!

Its been a long time since I last posted! I think Im going to try to get back into blogging again. I have met some really neat people and I enjoy getting feedback from other adoptees and adoptive parents. Anyway, my first post back is going to be about cooking!

So my fiancee (Yes, I am getting married!) is from Korea and has been begging me to learn to cook Yang Nyum Chicken which literally translates to Chicken with Sauce. Anyway, the sauce is sweet and spicy, but is more on the spicy side with a hint of sweet. I have been kind of shying away from trying this because it requires deep frying chicken, which I have never done before, but I envisioned it to be messy. (I was kind of right)


But this weekend my fiancee hasn't been feeling well...she came down with a cold. So I finally broke down and made this dish for her. I basically followed a recipe that we had found on facebook


you read my comments, you will see the changes that I suggested. I thought the original sauce was way too spicy and not enough sweetness so I tripled the sugar and corn syrup. I also had to use more water than the recipe called for because the batter was like bread dough. I also fried the chicken at 350 F for 6 minutes both times. I cooked it longer because I used chunks of chicken instead of wings.

Here is my setup for frying the chicken:

Here is a picture after the first frying (It is important to double fry the chicken so that it is extra crispy!):


Here is the final product:

Here is a better picture, but of leftovers!:

I have pictures of my fiancee eating the chicken and a picture of her after she is done eating and full....but I do want to get married in December, so I think it is best not to post those pictures...sorry!

I ate the leftover chicken the next night, and I microwaved it to reheat and amazingly it was still very crunchy! That double frying is an absolute must!

Hiatus

I can't believe its been over a month since I last posted. Im not sure if anyone still reads (hard to "still read" when nothing new is posted).

One of my real life friends who watches my blog has been bugging me to post again. It might also be that she has moved away and misses the good ole' St. Louis? I have been procrastinating, because in truth, I just don't know what to post about. I feel that I have exhausted the Korean topic, and its really tough to blog about that when you live in the US...particularly in St. Louis, where there is almost no Korean culture.

Ive grown weary of the adoption topic. While I have learned a lot, and thought a lot about this topic, I feel that I have worn myself out on this topic.

My friend suggested that I just write about whats going on in my life, so I guess I'll start doing that. Although I can't imagine that being particular interesting...again, I think its because she misses St. Louis! LOL.

This weekend was crazy and a lot of fun. I wish I had my camera but I forgot to bring it with me. Saturday night my friends had an ice cream social to kick off the summer.

Then on Sunday night we celebrated the birthdays of 3 of our friends, with a grill out. Everyone brought their own meat and we grilled it. There were various steaks, brats, burgers (even the non-meat variety), and kabobs. It was delicious. My friends Nicci and Leo and I decided to splurge a little and bought filets. I put sea salt and pepper on them and then slowly grilled them for 40 minutes. Leo said he wanted it medium (pink but no blood), but he kept saying that didn't think it was possible because filets are so thick. I told him, not to concern himself with it, and I knew what I was doing. Well, after 40 minutes of grilling, they came out perfect! Pink in the middle, no blood, and the tenderest steak I have ever eaten! Yum! Unfortunately we ate them so quickly, there was no time to get a picture! Maybe next time.

Tofu

I haven't posted in a while. I have been extremely busy.

Right now I am recovering from a cooking incident. Trying to open a box of tofu (I knew there was a reason I hate buying tofu in a box), I cut my pinky nuckle on my left hand, near to the bone! The ER doctor has put a splint on it with that crazy glue stuff because its right on the nuckle. I have taken off the splint once in a while, but the tendon is really sore...I hope it will heal soon.

Anyways, if you buy tofu, don't get it in the box, and if you do...use scissors...lol

I was making Kimchee Chigae the other night and I didn't have any tofu in my fridge. So I ran out to the local grocery store and they only have firm, extra firm, super firm tofu!! Honestly! don't they know of this awesome ingredient called soft tofu?? They multiple brands of each of these tofus. To make matters worse each was in a cardboard box! how inefficient..you can buy the soft tofu in neat plastic tubes at the Korean grocery stores...no fear of cutting yourself cutting into a tube!!

While tofu does not have much a taste in itself, people often ask me why I eat it. I reply because I like it..however, thinking about it there is not much a taste, but the fact that it is so subtle and I really like the texture. Which is probably why I prefer the super soft tofu to the firm. A soup doesn't feel right if it doesn't have tofu in it! Besides, its a "super food". Tofue is super healthy for you and it doesn't taste bad..what more could you want?

Korean Cooking!

I have bought several Korean cook books recently. I have been stocking up on the base ingredients and buying cooking equipment.

I personally love to cook. However, even for someone who thoroughly enjoys cooking, cooking new foods can be daunting. Even though I am Korean, Korean food is somewhat "foreign". By this I mean, I grew up learning how to cook American food. My parents were good about teaching me how to cook. I'm not ashamed to be a single guy who knows how to cook and bake, I'll never go hungry! However cooking American food is much different from cooking Korean food, or any other ethnic food. This may not seem like a big deal, but it does make a big difference.

The difference comes to creativity and time preparation. When you learn how to cook one ethnic type of food, you know what type of flavors, spices, and tastes mix well or work well together. You also learn valuable time savings methods in preparation. So trying to learn a new type of cooking takes a lot of time and effort. It also takes a lot of trial and error, but if your willing to put in the time, the end rewards is great!

Here is one of the recipe books that I purchased:
Discovering Korean Cuisine: Recipes from the Best Korean Restaurants in LA


I was really concerned when I was thinking about purchasing this book. In my past experience most cookbooks from restaurants were usually sub-par. The reason being is the recipes are often extremely complex and difficult, requires equipment the average person doesnt have, and never seems to taste right (like the restaurant is really going to give away their secret sauce!)

This cookbook does not fit this mold. It is actually very good. The recipes are fairly simple (much more than I expected) and they taste great! Although I am still skeptical that the restaurants give out their exact recipes, however, they still taste very good. I would highly recommend this book for anyone who wants to start learning how to cook Korean. Fairly simple recipes, great tastes!

Here are some of the items I've cooked so far:
Dwaeji Bulgogi:


It was so good! It was so good that I made it again a week later!:


The recipe doesnt call for vegetables, but I hate making dishes with just meat, plus I love onions, green peppers, and green onions with these types of dishes! I think I am starting to overcome my "fear" of Korean cooking because I am starting to modify the dishes to my taste!

I have also made kimchi jeon:

I love kimchi jeon, but I never made it before because I thought it might be a little tough to make. Boy was I wrong! Flour, water, kimchi, salt! Thats it!!! And it tastes great!

The third dish I have made from this book was an egg casserole:

It looked really good! Unfortunately, it didnt taste as good as it looked. I think I know what went wrong, so the next time I make it I think I will know how to improve it. I really like this dish so I will try again!

Like I said this cookbook is really good. The recipes taste great, and the recipes are fairly simple and do not require a lot of ingredients (with a few exceptions).

I mentioned that I bought some new equipment...here was a gift to myself. I figured it would motivate me in my quest to learn Korean cooking, its worked so far!


Jealous? You should be, these are awesome tools! I had to think a long time about buying these. A really good knife set is really expensive. Was it worth the cost? Definitely, I am asking myself why I waited so long to buy a nice set. The efficiency of the way the knives cut is hard to describe. They are very solid knives, with some weight to them (personally like a heavier knife, it makes me feel like there is something there). Of course you can get a really good knife that is light weight. Actually the way the knife fits your hand and the weight are the biggest determining factors when buying a high end knife. So if your debating on getting a really good knife or set, I would highly recommend it. If you don't want to fork over all that money for a full set, I would highly recommend buying a good 8" chef knife, and a 3" or 4" paring knife, these two knives are the most used/common and probably the most cost efficient.

Nothing Beats Home Cooking! (Part II)

So not even 24 hours later, my family went back to Hanguk for another "home cooked" Korean meal at my request!!! My family is so nice! They know how much I miss Korean food!

This time, my family was joined by my grandpa, my cousin and his wife!

I had dweiji bulgogi (spicy pork):


Here is my cousin, Pat, enjoying his Japchae!!


If you couldn't tell he's adopted...

In our family we say that he and his older brother and younger sister are adopted. This is because in our family, there are 4 adopted Korean grandkids, and 3 biologic grandkids. So the adopted Korean grandkids outnumber the biological kids. So its our inside joke that totally confuses everyone when we explain that the white kids are the "adopted" grandkids in our family...lol. We are definitely not concerned about being Politically Correct...lol

My cousin is married to Megan (pronounced Mee - gan, NOT Meh-gan!!!) who also joined us for lunch. She had bulgogi, but I won't show the picture I took of her eating. My cousin Pat and I have no dignity when it comes to food. Megan is much higher class than Pat or I so I'll spare her photo. She does enjoy bulgogi, but I don't think we have her converted on kimchi yet. You would be proud of Pat, he can put away kimchi with the best of Koreans!

Thanksgiving Dinner!

Thanksgiving this year was real small. Just my family (mom, dad, sister, and grandpa) and 1 of my dad's graduate students. But we still had a feast: Turkey, stuffing, mash potatoes, corn, gravy, green bean casserole, salad, and apple pie!
Finished Turkey:


Getting lessons on how to carve a Turkey:


Finished Product:


Table full of food:


I so over ate (Plate 1):


Plate 2:


Here is the apple pie that I baked from scratch. The crust was excellent, probably one of my best. The filling for some reason didnt solidify very well...so it was still a little liquidy, it still tasted good:


Here is how I eat my pie (actually, I don't really like pies. I like baking, but I don't really like pies). As you can see from the picture, I prefer whipped cream to pie...lol


For those of you in Korea, I hope you were able to enjoy a yummy Thanksgiving meal. If not, hopefully these pictures will hold you over until you come back to the US!

Sunduboo II

It was a cold and blusterous rainy night in St. Louis. Perfect weather for sunduboo!!!

This is my second attempt at making sunduboo. Thanks to Maangchi for the recipe I followed.

I even debuted my new stone pot for this recipe!! I made a little change to the recipe. I used pork instead of beef. I think pork suits sunduboo better than beef.



The stone bowl worked great! It kept the sunduboo hot to the last bite! I think I even burned my tongue on my last bite!

It wasn't perfect...for some reason the egg didn't "bind" everything together and so it was a little watery.I think it was due to the way I mixed it in. You know what they say "third times a charm"!! I'll just have to be sure to make it soon!

Arirang Korean Restaurant - Houston

Im back in Houston for the third week of the last 4. I have lived in the Crowne Plaza Hotel more than in my new house...that is sad :(

Anyways, the one nice thing is Houston has way more and better Korean restaurants than St. Louis. I have found a new favorite; Arirang Restaurant. I ate here on Sunday night when I first arrived. Ive been really busy at work and really tired at night so I'm posting this kind of late.

Here is what I ate:



Pork and Kimchee Chim

It was enormous!! Like there was enough food for 3 of me. I tried my best but I could only eat a third of the plate!!! It was really good. plus there was toju slices all around the plate. Like I said this was an enormous plate of food. After I got done eating, I got a lecture from the waitress about how wasteful that was!!!

She tried to get me to take it with me, however I don't have a refrigerator in my hotel room. She kept lecturing me about leaving so much food!! I couldnt believe it!!! The dish wasn't labeled that it was for 2 people, so I assumed it was a single serving. But obviously this dish was big enough for multiple people. Anyways, why does it matter? As long as I pay for a dish, it shouldnt matter how much I leave behind. I eat more than the average person. So if there was this much left over, I feel its the restaurants fault for making so much food. Maybe they should think about cutting the portion size a little bit and not lecture the weary customer when they get this huge plate of food!

Oh well, its part of the Korean experience. I guess it just makes it authentic Korean getting chewed out by a strange ajumma!! LOL

It tasted really good. How awesome is that, quantity and quality!!!

This restaurant is quickly becoming my favorite in Houston. On my previous visits I had the following:
Haemaul chim:

Korea Garden Grille

The third night in my quest for a really good Korean restauarant continues... This was my third night in Houston. My third night driving over an hour for a measly 5-10 miles to get dinner! Of course your probalby thinking.. "who the heck drives that much for food??" Please remember two things:
1. Houston traffic is notoriously horrible.
2. Im addicted to Korean food

I think my quest is going to make me gain a lot of weight this week.....the things I do in the search of the best Korean Restaurant in Houston.

Korea Garden Grille was almost perfect restaurant. I want to give you the visuals..so close your eyes and take a few deep breathes and clear your mind....

Ok..think Korea BBQ; think bulgogi, korean ribeye, spicy pork, spicy chicken, spicy squid, shrimp, and octopus...Now visualize all of those uncooked on a big buffet....all you can eat...with all you can eat ban chan.....perfection???

I thought I was in heaven when I first arrived to this restuarant. Yes it is a buffet all you can eat korean BBQ restauarant. Definitely unique and definitely the first I have ever seen or even heard of.

I wasnt expecting much from the ban chan...however, it was extremely good. After thinking about it, the restauarant has an incentive to make really good banchan. Its probably way cheaper than all you can eat meat...lol. Also the kimchee was the best Ive had in Houston to date. By far. I could have filled up on rice and kimchee except I wanted to make sure I got my money's worth...lol.

Onto the important stuff...the meat... The meat was really good quality. I was real rib and ribeye beef. The chicken was good as as the pork. No gristle and not the cheap fatty stuff. I was really shocked! There were only a few disappointments. The marinade for the beef dishes could have been better. I dont think this was a way the restaurant was trying to save money because marinade is probably one of the cheaper items they buy or make. So I dont know how to explain why the marindade was very good. Its a shame because its the only think keeping this restaurant from being near perfect. The chicken, pork, salmon, and squid were really good. I didnt try the octopus and shrimp.

Don't get me wrong, the beef wasnt bad...it just wasnt what I was expecting. It tasted like plain beef and not like bulgogi or kalbi. But being that it was good beef it still tasted good.

Im sorry I was unable to get photos because...I left the camera in the car!!! and I was too lazy to go out and get it. However, I am in Houston next week and so far this restaurant has the honor of being the best Korean restaurant Ive tried in Houston. So I will probably go back..and next time I plan on getting a movie of the buffet. No matter how embarassing it might be getting a video of the buffet...lol

Sam Bo Jung Restauarant - Houston

Continuing on my quest to try all the Korean Restaurants in Houston, I wandered to Sam Bo Jung Restaurant.

Houston has begun recovering from Hurricane IKE. Unfortunately the traffic lights have not recovered. There is an estimated 2500 lights out in downtown Houston area. If you do not know any better, Houston has a horrible traffic problem. This combined with the Hurricane damage equals a horrible traffic jam. This restauarant was 6 miles from my office, and it took me over an hour to drive there!!! THe things I go through for Korean food!

Sam Bo Jung was a dark restaurant, and was pretty empty.

Lucky for me my meals have been covered by my company since I am in Houston on business. Its a good thing because my meals are averaging from $20-$30 a night! ouch...lol

I started off with mul mandoo:


Followed that up with haemul juk:



The mandoo was pretty good. Nothing that really stands out. pretty much your average mandoo. The haemul juk was kind of disappointing. It was really watery. I mean I know its soup and its mostly water, but I expect the soup base to have decent flavor. The broth of this soup did not have much flavor, it was more water than flavor of anything. Other Haemul juk Ive had usually consisted of a thicker broth. Sort of like Sunduboo, a thick red pepper paste based broth. I guess that was what I was expecting.

Overall I'd give this meal a 5 of 10. Onward with my quest for the restauarant in Houston that gets my visit twice!

Houston: Arirang Restaurant

Im in Houston for a week for a business trip. The upside of it is, apparently Houston has a few Korean Restaurants. Ive decided to try a new one each night of the week. Arirang Restaurant was the first restaurant I tried out.
I finally got some decent Kimchee Jeon:


I still craved fish, even after my fish dinner Friday night. So I ordered the grilled mackeral again:


The mackeral was excellent. Perfectly cooked and crispy. The Jeon was fairly good, Ive had better though. The biggest disappointment was the kimchee. It tasted watery and not spicy at all. The fish was excellent but the weak kimchee really altered the overall meal. Its too bad because the restaurant was very nice and a huge selection of dishes. But to me, kimchee is a basic and a fundamental.

Overall I'd give Arirang a 7.5/10 based on this meal. I would like to tray the other dishes but Ive got so many restuarants to try in so little time. Don't worry though because I am supposed to be spending a lot of time in Houston in the next year. So I should eventually have time to go back someday and try more dishes

First Meal!!

So I finally cooked my first meal in my new house. I also have a new addition to my "family"

It is an authentic Korean Cuckoo Pressure Rice Cooker!! It even has the Korean female voice that tells you that the rice is done in KOREAN!!

The family I stayed with in Seoul kept telling me that I needed to get a real Korean rice cooker. I finally did. I had to go to Chicago last week and I found a store called H-Mart...inside they had this rice cooker! So I bought it.

I made dinner..I'll have to say the rice was perfectly cooked. It was quit a bit better than the rice cooker I got from Walmart. However the one from walmart was a lot cheaper.

My first cooked meal in my new house:

I kind of cheated. I cooked mackeral that was prepared by the Korean store in Detroit. Anyways, it was really good. However, I didnt have the oil hot enough when I started cooking so it wasn't as crispy as it should have been? Better try next time.

Oh yea, I forgot to mention, I almost forgot to take a picture of it, so I had already eaten half of the fish...hehehhe

Seoul Garden (St. Louis)

This was the second Korean restaurant I have tried in St. Louis. Unfortunately I am disappointed so far in the offerings. I lost the pictures to the first restaurant I tried.

This restaurant was not too clean and almost totally empty. I had the Haemul Pajeon and my classic Sunduboo.

The Haemul didnt have enuff batter and was stuffed full with the leaves used for bulgogi. It tasted ok, but would have been much better with more batter to hold it together.


The Sunduboo tasted alright, nothing real special. Except I noticed that it was missing oysters! I know this sounds funny but a few oysters is an ingredient Ive seen in almost every recipe. Like I said it tasted ok, but it was nothing that would make you remember it. Here is the picture of said dish:


The owner was nice but I'd rate this meal about a 4/10 overall. The restaurant could definitely us a face lift. I know that the looks don't do anything with the food but it sure does help make it more appealing.

Glorious Dinner!

I know I havent been very consistent posting lately. I am in the process of quitting a job, starting a new job, selling my house, moving, and buying a new house!!!! Needless to say my current house is a mess. Actually the movers come tomorrow to move! Luckily for me this move is on the company money so they come and pack and move for you! we'll see how that goes. Anyways, in between all of this I managed to cook a little.

This time I decided to try dokbukki. This is a classic and I really wanted it for dinner. I really thought it would be harder than it was, but it was pretty easy. I also figured that it would taste different, but it wasnt..it tasted just as good as the stuff you get in Korea!!

Again, thanks to Maangchi for the recipe. I followed her recipe exactly and it turned out excellent!

Here is a picture:



Like I mentioned above it tasted excellent. Next time I make it I think I will add a little fish cake (I had it with fish cake in Korea), but besides that it tasted just like the stuff on the streets. The sauce was extremely spicy but was also thick with the rice cake gluten..it was great. Taste wise I would give it a 9/10 and ease of cooking a 7/10. It took about 20 minutes from start to finish. The sauce takes a while to thicken, however this could be due to my antiquated coil electric stove top.

I couldnt just have dokbukki for dinner so I also fried up some galbi...I cheated on this. I bought pre-made galbi from my local Korean store. It was still great!



Here is the full spread at the table...enough food for "the Russian Army" as my grandpa would say:

Sundubo (First Attempt)

Well, I am finally back at my house(I was in Detroit before visiting my parents like a good son). It took me a couple of days to get settled in, but last night I was ready to cook for the first time in 3 months! Can you believe it, its been 3 months since I had been home!!

The first recipe I wanted to try was for Sudubo because its one of my favorite dishes. I used the recipe from Maangchi's website. I had my laptop up in my kitchen as I cooked so I could follow along her video.

Right now I have all my stuff packed up in boxes in storage because I am in the process of moving right now. So I had to go into my storage shed and pull out my rice cooker, pots and pans, and utensils! It was quite the project...much tougher then finding stuff in your drawers or cabinets! Anyways once I got all that sorted out, it was fairly smooth sailing (except for the recipe calls for onion, which wasn't listed in the ingredients section at the front of the recipe (so that was a second trip to the store!)
Anyways here are some progression photos:

Cooking the broth/base (water, shitake mushrooms, onion, anchovies) the white stuff is from all the boiling (I couldnt get the picture to rotate!):


Starting the Sundubo (pieces of beef, olive oil, broth/stock, pepper flakes):


Added the seafood (mixed seafood of shrimp, oysters, crab) and tofu (the most important part!):



Added "Greens" (green onion and a Jalepeno pepper.) The recipe calls for green chili pepper, however I live in a small town and Walmart only had Jalepeno peppers (gotta make do with what you've got!):



The finished product!! (Unfortunately I dont have any stone bowls yet, so this glass pot has to do!):



Here is the final setting at the table. Can you tell Im a bachelor? Like I said, everything is in storage and my house is really sparse right now. So Im trying to get by for the next two weeks on the bare minimums (those donuts kept me alive during the cooking because I didnt start cooking until 9 PM!!!)



It was excellent. It took about an hour to cook, the broth took near 40 minutes and the the chigae itself was only about 15 minutes! It didnt taste exactly like what Im used too, but probably like everything you have to refine the recipe. I would say its a 4/10 difficulty. Not very hard to make. Taste wise I would give it a 6/10. There are a few things I would change. I would use pork instead of beef. The beef flavor was too strong. I would also broil the meat or something instead of pan frying to make it softer. The other big improvement would be to strain the pepper flakes. Maangchi's recipe didnt call for it, but I think I would use the pepper flakes to make the broth/stock, then strain it so there weren't so many floating around in the chigae.

It was still very good and a lot of fun to make one of my favorite dishes!

Home Sweet Home!

I am back in the USA!!!!
Ive been back for less then 24 hours and Ive eaten at my local Korean restaurant twice! :)

Here's some pictures:
The front of the restaurant...not real impressive, but its really cool inside:


Sundoobu:


Not sure the exact spelling of this one. I believe its like Daekji Bulgogi? (spicy pork bulgogi):


I way overate last night. But it was sooo good!

For comparison, here is what I had to eat in Africa:
Roast Beef sandwich and Ramen (sadly this was the best meal I had in 3 weeks in Africa):

Amazing

Thanks to Therese Mac Seain, I have found a couple of new blogs on Korean food. Including her own blog, but also I had to look up what her favorite food was because I didnt recognize it. When I did that I found another great Korean food site! Ive added them both to my bloglist on the left hand side. Im all excited to check these "new" (at least new to me) blogs. They look amazing!

Even though Therese is not Korean..we won't hold it against her...maybe we can make her an honorary Korean...being that she lives in Korea...she's probably more "Korean" then I am right now in Africa...lol

Anyways, Im so excited to find all of these blogs on Korea...it helps me remember my trips to Korea and hopefully I'll be back soon!

What is your favorite Korean food?

Hey guys, I know theres only a few of you that read this, but I was wondering what your favorite Korean dishes are?

I just got an email from my "adopted" korean family. Ironic. I am adopted to the US then when I visit Korea I got "adopted" into a Korean family! Its really great...lol

Anyways, they reminded me of my favorite korean dish because they were telling me they went back to the restaurant. I could never write about it because I didnt know what it was called and I didnt have any photos. Well I still dont have photos but I know what its called.

Gamjatang!!! It is my favorite dish in Korea. It translates to potato soup. I know it doesnt sound real appetizing. Actually when my Korean family first explained it to me, they called it potato and pork bone soup...So I had this picture in my mind of a cream of potato soup with like a ham bone in it for flavoring...needless to say I wasnt exactly excited about it. Boy was I wrong! Its actually a spicy broth base with large pork bones (not sure exactly what the cut of pork is, but I suspect its the spine/ribs of the pig) and chunks of potato along with various other vegetables. There are large chunks of pork on the pork bone which you peel off and dip the meat into a watered down wasabi sauce and eat! Excellent. Then, when you are done with the meat and potatoes, you can get ramen added to the broth and when thats all done you can get rice and make bibimbop!! By far this is my favorite dish..

As many of you know a close second would be Andong Jjim-ddak! Its hard to beat this spicy chicken and noodles combination.

These two dishes are hands down my favorite. Unfortunately I have never heard of these types of restaurants anywhere in the US. But I will start trying to track one down!

Back in Business!

Well, I am at my parents house in Detroit now. I just flew in a couple of hours ago from St. Louis. While I was in St. Louis I decided to pick up another digital camera because Im leaving tomorrow morning for Vancouver and I cant go on that trip without a camera. Unfortunately I was unable to replace the Samsung NV24HD. I know in reviews it got trashed, but I was starting to really like that camera :(

Anyways I got a Canon PowerShot1100IS. Its compact and takes decent pictures.

Here is how you can have a heart attack in less then 20 minutes:


Bratwurst with chili cheese fries and a large coke!

Here are some zoom in pictures with the new camera:

Cousin's New House

My cousin and his wife (Pat and Megan) just bought their first house! Its a great house, a lot nicer than most people's houses. Anyways, Ive been over there the last two days helping them paint. If my career in engineering fails, I could always take up painting.

House:

Thats my awesome truck on the right side. I miss driving it when I'm gone for a long time.

Well, in return for work, they feed me. I could always go to the street corners and wear a sign that says "Will work for food!"

We had hamburgers and corn on the cob grilled on the grill. That's my cousin Pat putting the burgers on. Even though they are the frozen preformed patties, they are far superior to anything I've had in Africa...lol:


The "Grill Master" at work...I think he needs to watch what he's doing a little more? I call dibs on the non-burned one :)


The spread, which included pasta salad, chips with chipotle dip, and corn on the cob. Traditional American Fare:


Of course you can't forget dessert!! (smores!!):


They were awesome! the chocolate was huge and it was all soft and melting!:


Pat showing how to eat a smore!