Wednesday, November 11, 2020

my apartment smells awesome right now

Hi.  I'm Kevin.  And right now, Dear Reader, I'm making a large batch of boeuf bourguignon for lunch this coming Friday.  I do hope you understand that, despite the pandemic and the political turmoil, I find myself in an increasingly celebratory mood as December draws near.  Why?  Because this coming November 16, I get paid, and I'll have enough money in my Korean bank account to wire $5000 to my US bank account.  All of that money will be dumped into my scholastic debt, and come December, I'll have only $1200 of that debt to pay off.  Some terrible things have happened to all of us this year, but at the very least, I'm going to take the time to celebrate my liberation from a ball and chain that I've had around my ankle for twenty damn years.  It's a celebration that shouldn't have been necessary, if only I had been more financially astute back when I was younger.  Well... some of us are slow learners, I guess, but this has been a lesson well learned, and I'm a wiser man for it.  So pardon me if I'm starting the celebration a bit early, but I may as well:  my current boss might be leaving us in early December, so I need to get all the office-party stuff out of the way before then.  We'll be eating boeuf bourguignon this coming Friday (Friday the 13th, no less), then we'll be doing a pre-Thanksgiving luncheon on the 20th (the following Friday), after which I'm having a post-Thanksgiving bash with friends (not with office people) on Saturday the 28th.  After December 4, either I'll have a boss or I won't, but whatever happens, I'll be partying like a madman for a whole damn week once I send that final $1200 payment to the States.

So that's why my apartment smells awesome tonight.  Tomorrow night, I'm making Spätzle as the pasta on which to put the beef Burgundy.  That's gonna be awesome, too.  2020, this annus horribilis, has given many of us reasons to be sad, but that's all the more reason to seize upon any and all reasons to be glad.



5 comments:

John Mac said...

Freedom isn't free, but being debt-free is a nice kind of freedom. Congrats!

Daniel said...

Congrats on being (almost) debt free! Food sounds scrumptious!

Kevin Kim said...

Daniel, for pics of previous boeuf bourguignon and Spaetzle, type "boeuf" and "Spaetzle" into my blog's search window, way up top. Or just wait: more pics are coming.

Daniel said...

The boeuf bourguignon looked out of this world, but what in the world is Spaetzle?

Kevin Kim said...

Daniel,

You know how Koreans jokingly use the term 못난이 (lit. "misbegotten") as a cutesy way to refer to "ugly," malformed food (the kind of food that Western chefs jokingly call "rustic")? Spaetzle is German 못난이 파스타. Imagine sujaebi dumplings, but tiny and numerous. You make an eggy, yogurt-y batter, drip it through a slotted spoon (or other implement with lots of holes in it) over boiling water, allow the drops of pasta to boil until set, then scoop all the tiny Spaetzle out of the water and toss them into a waiting container. After you've made all the Spaetzle, the next phase is to pan-fry everything in small batches using butter. Once the Spaetzle have a nice suntan, they're ready to serve, or you can store them and reheat when needed.

Many Americans with no knowledge of German will pronounce the word as "spet-zll." The German pronunciation is closer to "shpehts-leh."