It Started with a Journal

I am on a kitchen goddess ROLL. I've gotten pretty good at making jajangmyeon, if I say so myself (and I DO, okay). I've made it four or five times now, and I've got it down to a science. So delicious! The only negative is that I can't seem to find the right noodles to use. I'm using fresh Korean noodles, but I've tried various kinds and they're all a little too thick. Besides, jajangmyeon is a Korean take on a Chinese dish, so the noodles should actually be more Chinese-style. There's apparently "jajangmyeon noodles" labeled as such out there, but I've never been able to find them. :( (In related news, jade_okelani ate jajangmyeon for the first time and now understands what all the hype is about.) The other day I also made chicken tamale pie, and that was reallllllllly good also.

Never let it be said that I neglect dessert! I've also made two kinds of ice cream: vanilla with chocolate stracciatella (basically, chocolate chip ice cream) and chocolate almond walnut. Sooooooooo good. I recently had a disappointing experience with a store-bought ice cream, and decided to make my own. There was one summer when I was making ice cream constantly, but it's been awhile, so I was a little rusty. The custard for the vanilla one seemed a little dicey initially, but after straining it, it turned out great. Next up: I'm going to try and make my favorite sea salt with caramel ribbons ice cream from Salt & Straw. ( My experimentation so far. )

jade_okelani and I are sooooooooo **HEARTEYES** over Park Hyungsik it's not even funny. We just LOVE HIM in Strong Woman Do Bong Soon, and love the show, period. Yes, it has its flaws. But they're easy to overlook when there's so much else we enjoy! I'm both happy and sad that we started watching while it's airing. It's such a great show to look forward to, but it's sooooooooo disappointing when there's no new episode for another week. The problem is, when we decided to watch SWDBS in real time, we had expected to like Goblin a lot more (or I did, at least), and not expected to like SWDBS quite so much. Sigh.

Isn't this an awesome shot of Park Bo-young and Park Hyung-sik? She looks so much better with her normal dark hair like she has it in everything else I've ever seen her in. I'm not sure why Bong-soon has to have the light brown/orange hair, even though PBY is so attractive she can pull it off anyway.



( SWDBS spoilers through ep 8. )

The main theme song from SWDBS is sung by Jung Eun-ji! <3!! I love her voice.

I'm giving Reply 1994 another shot. jade_okelani and I started Reply 1988, but we got to talking, and it seemed to make sense for her to see at least the pilot of Reply 1994. If she could take it, then I could probably get through it with someone else to watch with me, and then we'd be watching things in chronological order. The interesting thing is, on rewatch, I actually do like 1994 better than I did before! Maybe it's watching with Jade, or maybe it's just having the distance from 1997, which I loved sooooooooooooooooo much. I'm not as bothered about the parents being the same actors, and even Go Ara doesn't annoy me as much. I'm still not a fan, but I don't dislike her as much as I did the first time around. This also bodes well for my plan to watch Hwarang (for Park Hyungsik). ( Spoilery comment. )

One of the shows that's on our watchlist, that must now be bumped up, is She Was Pretty. Why? Because in episode 9, there are cameos from Seo In-guk AND Park Hyungsik!!!!!!!!! If they are on screen at the same time, I might actually not survive.

I was forced to buy a new iPod because my old iPod, the discontinued 120GB one that I got yeeeeeaaars ago, stopped working after the latest iTunes update. It was super annoying, but I've had issues with it over the years, I don't actually need 120GB of space on my portable music player, and I figured this might be Apple's way of stopping support for it once and for all. And by "stopped working" I don't mean that it literally stopped working. I can plug it into my car or any speakers, and it will play fine. However, iTunes and my PC can't read it, so I can't update it. In fact, I thought I might have to wipe the whole thing and re-input all my music, which I've had to do several times before, but I can't even do that. It's basically a time capsule at this point, with only the music I've put into it before March 2017. :P Part of me wondered if I should just be patient, and with the next update of iTunes, it'll fix itself. But like I said, I just figured it was time to get a new iPod, so I did. Only days after I got it, however, I learned from adelagia that she only got her new iPod last year, and the same thing happened to her! So... WTF!

Anyway, what's done is done, and I don't really regret it. I liked that I was able to personalize it with an inscription on the back (I used a song lyric, since it's an iPod!). I like that it uses a touch screen. And I LOVE that I can connect to it via Bluetooth from my car and wireless headphones. So, all in all, despite being resentful of Apple for breaking their own shit so that I can't use it, I'm not sorry I upgraded.

Subject line: Bong-soon's Mom to Min-hyuk, in order to manipulate him into joining them for breakfast.

Finished another one of my WiP K-dramas last night, Oh My Venus. :D Overall I do recommend it; it has a great cast, and for the better part of the first half, was extremely cute and charming. There was a whole chunk of the middle/end, though, that I really could have done without. The end was good, so at least there's that. It also manages to accomplish something pretty impressive... surprise and charm me with the hero's proposal. It happens in a way that I didn't expect, was unique, and was actually good. It's hard these days to have a proposal on a show that is any of these things, because it's done so much and in so many different ways.

I feel that this earns me the right to start another drama... I just have to decide which Seo In-guk series I want to watch next. Reply 1997, which stars a younger SIG? Hello Monster, where he plays a hot criminal profiler? Or Shopping King Louie, where he plays a chaebol who loses his memory? SO MANY LOVELY CHOICES.

I'm feeling fine now, but have lingering cold symptoms like having to blow my nose and a stupid cough. I have a dental appointment tomorrow AND my annual physical; I reallllly hope it's not going to be an issue.

adelagia and I are supposed to make kimchi over the weekend (rehearsal for being married to our future hot celebrity Korean husbands), and I have purchased a large tub, a fermented vegetables container, fresh squid, and a couple of other things. I'm planning to use regular plastic gloves as opposed to dishwashing gloves, but that should be okay. I've made kimchi once before and did the same thing, even if it was a slightly smaller amount. Then we're going to make tapioca coconut cookies. :D

I accidentally -- YES, IT WAS AN ACCIDENT -- opened jade_okelani's Christmas gift early, and it's awesome, a Breaking Bad-themed cutting board. I can use it for the first time for the kimchi making!