Lindsey Edson

Photos: Passport & Plate - Yukgaejang - Soup for Seoul

edsonlg — Fri, 6 Mar 2015 13:52:00 GMT

Ingredients
1 ounce dried gosari, (fernbrakes) - yields about 1 cup rehydrated
1 pound beef brisket, (or flank steak or shank meat)
1/2 onion
8 ounces Korean radish
14 cups water
8 ounces sukju, (bean sprouts)
3 dry shiitake mushrooms, soaked (or fresh shiitake or oyster mushrooms)
2 - 3 bunches scallions
2 tablespoons sesame oil
2 tablespoons gochugaru, (Korean red chili pepper flakes)
1 tablespoon minced garlic
2 tablespoons guk ganjang, (soy sauce)
1 teaspoon doenjang, (Korean fermented soybean paste)
1 teaspoon gochujang, (Korean chili pepper paste)
salt and pepper
2 eggs, lightly beaten

How to prepare this recipe
1. Add the gosari and 4 cups of water to a small pot. Boil over medium heat, covered, until tender. Turn the heat off and let it cool in the cooking water. When ready to use, rinse in cold water and drain. Cut into 4-inch lengths, removing tough ends of the stems, if any.

2. In a large pot, bring the meat (optional to brown in a pan first), onion, optional radish, and garlic to a boil in 14 cups of water. Reduce the heat to medium, and skim off the scum. Boil, covered, until the meat is tender enough for shredding, 1 to 1-1/2 hours. Pull a string of meat off and check the tenderness. Remove the meat and cool. Discard the vegetables, reserving the stock in the pot. Spoon off any visible fat.

3. When the meat is cool enough to handle, shred into about 3 to 4-inch strips.

4. Blanch the bean sprouts in boiling water for a minute. Wash with cold water and drain. Cut the scallions into 4-inch lengths. Thinly slice the soaked mushrooms.

5. In a pan, heat the sesame oil until hot over low heat and stir in the chili pepper flakes. Turn the heat off as soon as the oil starts to turn red and the chili pepper flakes become a bit pasty. This only takes a few seconds. Try not to burn the flakes!

6. Add the meat, fernbrakes, mushrooms, 1 tablespoon soup soy sauce, and garlic. Combine well.

Serve and enjoy with optional rice, kimchee and bean sprouts.

The story behind this recipe
“I’ve never been to my homeland,” my best friend, Hoo Chun spilled. After grieving together when her Korean mother left this earth, we knew a trip was not only tempting but required. “Let’s book a flight,” I responded, famously. We were comforted by this and a piping bowl of spicy Korean beef soup that Hoo Chun was obstinate on perfecting. Her mother had only left her with recipes, but not the secrets buried in them.

Seoul and its vibrant prowess welcomed us home. The dichotomy between tradition and innovation stood together in stillness as we snaked in and out of the dynamic city. Hoo Chun was struck by a cultural relevance to her heritage and I was captured by culinary whimsy. Giddy, we followed our taste buds from one steaming market to another, watching mackerel broil in red pepper sauce and eggs crack over bibimbap. “My Umma would make this!” She pointed. I made note, like any good friend.

The familiar food comforted us in ways little else can. Enchanted, we skipped eagerly to teetering street vendors, leaning in to hear bartering of ingredients like fernbrake fiddleheads and wise elders debate preparation methods. We learned from the locals and our tongues on what made a dish superior to its sister by tasting Korean radish and shellfish. The spices revealed everything.

Worn by stimulated senses we readied to leave, but Hoo Chun stopped, “Do you smell that?” I tilted my head to see if I could see what she was tracking. Lured by a smell that wafted from a small restaurant with its doors flapping open we followed, entranced. “You like soup,” a woman smiled with a toothless grin. “Come,” she beckoned. We found ourselves minutes later, welcomed into a large kitchen of a thousand mothers preparing food for the next day.

Oils heated, onions sautéed, and beef browned. A pot of boiling water with gochujang chili enlivened the kitchen. “Can I taste this Yukgaejang?” Hoo Chun asked tenderly. “Of course, I’ll teach you everything I know,” the mother answered.

Legends of Light

edsonlg — Thu, 15 May 2014 14:22:17 GMT

Over 40,000 bolts ripped across the night sky. I sat up in the hammock, hugged my knees, and awed at the relentless lightning cracking like a whip from cloud to cloud. No rain followed. The indigenous people here call it “rib-a-ba,” or “river fire in the sky.”

The only way to arrive was by a lone motored boat, through the Catatumbo River. A playground for anacondas, dolphins, monkeys, and the occasional Motilones Indian risking a swim. The primitive river empties into the mouth of Lake Maraicabo, pooling in readiness for the electric rave. Scientists speculate answers against a divine phenomenon: uranium in the bedrock, high levels of methane or the collision of winds.

Nature's flashlight revealed her first. A women paddled on a raft fashioned from a piece of Styrofoam through the marshy lakebed to the hospital where I lay, lightly swinging from two posts. Out on the lake, tin and plywood shacks rose out of the water perched on stilts to form a “palafito” village. Just a crowd of leggy, dark flamingos.

“Dios mio!” cried the woman, windmilling her arms. I nearly fell out of my hammock. The lightning blazed on, arcing like a rainbow, revealing her tear streaked cheeks. She met my gaze with determination, an enigma parallel to Catatumbo.

The doctor rushed to her side, pulling her off the raft. “Stingray bite,” he announced for my benefit. The air held its heavy breath with anticipation of rain.

At the center of the hospital, past the hammocks, we led her to a table. The doctor announced in Spanish, "The venom hasn't spread.” The woman closed her eyes in agony, pressing a palm to her forehead.

I took her hand. The doctor returned with a cloth and wrapped the wound to stop the bleeding and dipped her leg in a basin of hot water to fight the pain with heat. “The burning should subside,” he said.

Another symphony of rapid-fire lightning cascaded. My shoulders skipped. “You like the smile from the sky,” the woman said, turning to me. I returned a grin. “My people, we believe the fireflies are paying tribute to the spirit of creation. It starts at dusk and looms till dawn now for thousands of years.”

Out of the corner of my eye, the state flag flickered, illuminating a proudly centered yellow bolt to identify the region. I exhaled. Tempestuous Venezuela is of course the only place home to the greatest everlasting storm.

The women looked skyward as I marveled at her audacity. She spoke for the last time, “Tonight will be something special.”

Photos: Catatumbo

edsonlg — Tue, 13 May 2014 02:02:00 GMT

At a village on Lake Maracaibo to experience the Catatumbo lightning phenomenon.

Photos: Tanzania

edsonlg — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 01:47:00 GMT

Teaching math and English to kids outside Arusha, in rural Morombo.

Catching a Moment - The 38th Parallel

edsonlg — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 15:34:47 GMT

The shutter springs closed with a satisfying snap. "No!" A Korean soldier shouts, lurching forward and abandoning his Taekwando ready-stance while the perpetrator turns the camera over in his hand, marveling at the photograph. The owner only catches a satisfying glimpse of the framed land, spilling over rifts and valleys like a dragons back, before the camera is ripped brashly from his hands. The soldier locates and hits the delete button faster than he could harness his own assault rifle.

I looked around at the other tourists ogling the scene, who no longer dared to test the rules outlined so clearly in the pictures slashed in red at the "observatory". No photographs, no pointing, no loud noises, no gesture of any kind. We all stood there, teetering on the strip of demilitarized land separating North Korea from its amicable and estranged Southern brother; two ideal poles of continuum, a war zone and divide for over 5 million families.

I returned my gaze to the fixated viewfinder, looking through at a country rendered completely blank on Goggle Maps. At first blush, deer graze in an intact refuge of nature that's untouched by humanity, and a charming village stands in the distance, wrapped in a modest and utilitarian bow with dotted blue rooftops lining the buildings.

But then the wind shifts, and I press my eyes hard against the viewfinder peering over North Korea. Rather than a utopia of sorts, a sobering emptiness blows across the scene revealing deception. I shuddered and felt a wave of muffled muttering to my left and right.

Roads snake, climb and stretch into a dead end. Animals eerily flock to isolated areas avoiding well-known mines. Skeletons of buildings stand erect with painted on windows like hellish doll houses, giving way to a hoax of a place with empty shells made from poured concrete. No congested streets, or children playing, not even a whisper escapes. Programmers have shaped the topography and towers, leaving a city stuck in a jar of preservatives and incapable of breathing life.

I could now feel the heartfelt plea of reunification that the Southern brother aspires to, if it wasn't for the practiced artifact from the North. The dichotomy was translucent. Instead of a picture capturing North Koreas beauty, we gasp at the ironic and terrifying special effect instead; a ghostly country starving for life.

My Scholarship entry - A local encounter that changed my life

edsonlg — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 13:59:00 GMT

I see him ascending the Williamsburg Bridge, which hands off Brooklyn to Manhattan, on the long, arduous up-ramp. His shoulders arched in a shoddy jacket as he labors over a shopping cart that swells with black garbage bags arguing for space. Their contents are a mystery their worth unknown – a treasure borne of sweat, struggle and careful selection.

Not even a smile or a coin can be pried from the lips or pockets of a single passerby. Only glances of pity from the well-heeled, or abash strangers adverting their eyes. Of course, to halt the locomotion, to roll-up ones sleeves and jump in the trenches with another human being in this city is as foreign a concept as the female taxi driver. It’s an immutable truth that life in the city dare not be interrupted.

Gripped with a hunger to empathize, and a superman cape – I jerk into action. Recognizing his wariness as I approach him, I grin and motion to help pull the front of the cart. My fingers dig into the lattice pattern and as I heave, he simultaneously pushes forward.

Our faces are left inches apart, his face creased with dirt, relaxes and gooey eyes, hooded by mangy, unkempt hair, stare in thanks and paint relief. The grin becomes mutual as creaks of the wheels speak to our gaining momentum. This shared moment startles me and I flicker to the passing strangers gawking with looks of confusion.

We work as a team, an odd duo with groaning thighs. Half way across the bridge he motions for us to break and switch places. I nod knowingly. The earthy, bedraggled smell perspires from his hard work releasing proof of the luxury that is my shower.

The bridge sloped downward and our moment of amity has ended. I release my hands from the cart and wave goodbye, looking back at a man who seems to suffer only a little less. It’s not a city that generally encourages smiles between strangers. But here, at this moment, as we parted ways, the city felt more relaxed, more intimate, at ease with itself.