tomorrow's shopping objective

Costco didn't have those big, plump, chicken-and-vegetable potstickers that I like to buy-- the ones in the 10-dollar bags. They're pretty generic, but tasty enough to do the job, and the Costco I go to, in Winchester, normally has them. Today, however, they were plumb out. As Cheeseburger Brown would write, that fellates.

So we move to Plan B: the Korean store. There are at least two Korean groceries close to YB Near; I'll invade one after work (I finish around 9:30PM; these stores close at 10) and get what I need. And what I need is this:

1. mandu (potstickers, dumplings, whatever)

2. kimchi

3. ddeok

4. green onions

There's a soup I like to make, you see: I make a broth from dashida, add chopped green onions and kimchi, toss in the mandu, ddeok, scrambled eggs, and sliced-up hot dogs, and have myself a Komerican version of ddeokmandu-guk. Now, classic ddeokmandu-guk has no kimchi in it, but what I'm going for is something of a mishmash effect. Maybe I'll make my version and take a photo of it; Korean purists will likely find my soup disgusting. By adding the sliced hot dog, I drag the ddeokmandu-guk a little ways toward budae-jjigae-tude. Budae-jjigae has a certain fun, rough-and-tumble quality to it, but ddeokmandu-guk is more staid and dignified, in my opinion; I normally associate it with special occasions. Adding those hot dogs, and the spicy kimchi, vulgarizes an otherwise subtle, well-meaning soup. But I'm a fan of the vulgar, and I've eaten kal-guksu with kimchi before, so I don't think that what I've done is too far off the mark in terms of Korean flavor profiles.

Et demain... à la chasse!


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