Fight 4 Taste!

   I knew I should have prepped the cabbage last night. Instead of razor-thin shavings of bright green cabbage, I opened the cooler and there they were, two green bowling balls without the holes. But, hey, I am good with a knife. I am not stupid-fast, more like efficient. I got this. My one-hour lunch excursion into the culinary burst of what I view Fight4Taste to mean could happen. Right? All along there was a song playing in the background, come on Gen-X sing it if you know it..."A THREE HOUR TOURRRRRRRR!" Once the cabbage is shredded, it is evident I am in that episode of the Twilight Zone in which time is moving at 6 times its natural speed. I note to myself, that the next time my hands are clean, there is an important call that I need to make. I step off the curb to work on the rest of the build and then, I am again transported 37 minutes into the future. If I were home, the projections meet the reality and simply translate into a hungry family eating later, a kitchen be...

  When I thought yesterday was tough, I had no idea that it was only the beginning. As I rode into Thursday, I had no idea what was next. No inspiration, no direction, and no clue. I brought 2 books on Korean cooking to work with me, but I was too busy to read them. There they sat on my desk, the works of Eric Kim, Taekyung Chung, and Debra Samuels taunting me. It was a reminder, that I had planned nothing in this Korean theme week.  I have been winging it. It was looking like I was out of ideas. I chose denial as the precious hours of the day passed. We are in a state of physical transition at work which provides the perfect opportunity to hide my head in the sand on dinner ideas. I was sure of one thing, I had missed a few important household items when grocery shopping early yesterday morning, so I was stopping at Walmart before heading back over the river to go home tonight. I work well under pressure, so staring down the barrel of the imminent family requiring dinner, I j...

 There is always that time when we just don't know what it is we are going to make for dinner. Add this to a theme week and that is culinary paralysis. It is Wednesday. Liam and Haylie are coming for dinner. In my mind I saw us all sitting around the table, with a Korean barbeque cooker in the center of the table, super hot, around it were different vegetables and meats for us to place on the hot cast surface, searing up savory little bites to place into lettuce wraps with fermented bean paste, kimchi, samjan, chili crisp and beautiful banchan. The reality was I had no time to prep.  I did an early morning, before-work grocery shopping which then rolled right into a full workday, then right into dinner time. So there were no meats thawed and finely sliced. The banchan prep has not even started. I had bought 2 pounds of salmon at the fish counter earlier. That is usually our go-to easy meal, salt, pepper, olive oil, and out onto the hot grill on the porch, then topped with a le...