What does a hungry person look like?

"What does a hungry person look like and how can I look like that person?" So began one of our many conversations about food with fellow thru-hikers.  This question was asked by HotSauce while he was hiking through the Shenandoahs.  While we sat around in Duncannon eating pounds of BBQ and potato salad he began to recount to us how hungry he was in the Shenandoah national park and how horrible it was to see all these car tourists parading around with uneaten food sitting at their picnic tables or in their car windows.  As he was staring through a car window to a rather large woman's chili dog he asked himself that question.  "what does a hungry person look like and how can I look like that person?" 

Food is a major topic of conversation.   Dinner time rolls around and as people cook up their meals we always ask  them what's on the menu.  Having talked to countless other thru hikers about their daily diets I feel that when people ask me "what do you eat?" I can confidently say "Anything and everything." 
Let me give you an example of some of the various culinary creations.
One hiker always carries a bag of crumbled Doritos. He sprinkles them on everything he eats.  We thought this was so genius that we started doing the same thing-only we've been using sour cream and onion potato chips.

During our first few weeks on the trail we ended up at a shelter with Hawk who introduced us to the joy of the Ramen Bomb.  A package of Ramen Noodles and a package of Instant Potatoes.  BAM!  Delicious!  But don't stop there. Those are just the key ingredients. We've been known to add in cheese, onion, crackers, cheezits,  mayo, mustard, soysauce, hot sauce or chips.  And don't think less of us, but if we had all those things at one time-all would probably go into the pot.   We recently heard the suggestion of adding a package of powdered gravy to the mix.  GENIUS!

Rayo, our hiker friend from back at the beginning, would eat a daily breakfast of oatmeal and brownie mix.  

I watched a hiker eat an entire jar of peanut butter-IN ONE SITTING.

While at the Goose Pond shelter were pancakes are included with a stay I ordered a modest 3 pancakes while a fellow hiker ordered (and ate) seven.

Lots of people carry hunks of cheese and a sausage stick to eat for lunch or supplement dinner.

Our friend Chicken Feathers introduced me to the delicious snack of Nilla Wafers and Peanut butter and I personally love peanut butter and peanut M&Ms. 

Once, and don't judge me, I was so hungry that I ate pepperoni and peanut butter. I made a little cracker sandwich out of them. 
I attached a picture of a wrap we made with Buffalo flavored Deviled Chicken, Mayo, relish, chopped onions, cheese and cool ranch Doritos.  MM!

But normally our food isn't so crazy.  We prepared a lot of our food before hand and Jamie's dad mails it out to us.  We packed up 6000 calories a day of breakfast, lunch and snacks.  Lots of trail mix,  nuts, tuna and crackers, and various recipes of dehydrated meals we  found on Trailcooking.com.   I put in a picture of that too.  

Oh. and coffee.  Stick coffee every day.

Well, when we came into town we stopped at the Hardee's to eat breakfast and after 2 country fried steak biscuit sandwiches and a Hardee's Breakfast platter each, it's just about time for us to be getting hungry again.   We're off to the All-You-Can-Eat Chinese buffet for lunch! 

Eating Live Squid

Hi Friends!

The foreign language department recently went out for a department dinner. We went to Garak Market, a massive wholesale seafood and produce market. I had previously driven past it before, it's enormous and looks fairly overwhelming. Jamie and I have never ventured there as a tourist destination so it was exciting to be taken into it by my co-teachers.

I've been told you can buy produce there, but we only wandered in at the seafood stalls. Near to the venders is a vender resturant area. It pretty much consists of benchs all crammed into one area with signs hanging from the ceiling to tell you which vendor will be serving you. It looked confusing and not so friendly for those of us that haven't put as much effort into learning

Korean as we should have.

My co-teacher, Mika, had called ahead and we had a table all set and ready to go. The kimchi, baby seafood pancakes, tiny steamed clams, quail eggs, and soybeans were ready for our consumption the second we sat down. Shortly afterward, the waitress came over to ask us to come and choose our fish. I walked over with Mika and we chose the fish that looked most aggrieved at their situation so as to put them out of their misery more quickly (that and the price were the main considerations). We chose bass and cod. We were going to eat them as hweh, Korean for raw (and DELICIOUS!).

As we were waiting for the fish to be sliced and diced we were given MORE tasty treats. Lots of things from the sea. Everything was delicious! Super fresh. So fresh it was, infact, still moving. Here's a little video:

Yes, the raw (practically still alive) squid is delicious.

After all the raw fish and lots of other dishes we were given the rest of the fish in a soup with rice on the side. This is common with any meal in korea. After you are finished, you order soup and rice. Mika tells me the rice helps to settle the food in your stomach.

The soup was SPICY and hot! When you order the soup (any soup like this) , it comes practically boiling but just to make sure it says bubbling, you'll get a burner on the table so that your mouth knows no rest from the spice and heat. That just makes it more great. There were lots of unrecognizable things in the pot of hot but an equal amount of things that I knew. There was: fish heads, fish intestine (surprisingly delicious), turnip, bean sprouts, tofu, red chili pepper, fish eggs, potato and others. Since we had a fair amount of raw fish from earlier left over, we threw that in as well and flash boiled it. SO GOOD!

In the front is the raw fish, the center is our "rest of the fish" chigae (soup).

To be honest, I was full before the raw fish even got to our table. Every traditional style meal in Korea always starts with me thinking the same thing: Look at these tiny plates. I'm going to go home hungry. Every traditional style meal in Korea ends with me thinking the same thing: I have never eaten so much food in my life. And now they're giving me MORE RICE?!

I always forget that the plates are tiny but they are never allowed to be empty!

I love eating. Everyday I'm thankful that we are not picky eaters (thanks to mom and dad keller and mom and dad Lyon for not allowing that)!

Well, I hope you all enjoyed this latest post.

Take Care!

Interesting side notes about the raw squid:

It tastes super fresh. Obviously.

No, you can't feel it squirm in your mouth.

No, the suckers don't stick to your cheeks.

Yes, they DO stick to the plate.

Yes, the head and eyes were included in the plate and Yes, I avoided them.

I have heard experiences where the whole squid is put on a plate and people just snip off a piece as they want to eat it or just bite off a tentacle. I'm glad we didn't do that. I'm not certain I'm brave enough to kill my own food yet. And certainly not brave enough to torture it. I imagine it could live though losing a few tentacles.

Shannon and Jamie Christmas Extravaganza

While we have already impressed you with a christmas post, we decided to do a second in honor of the epiphany, AKA "Three Kings Day AKA "Little Christmas." This one will be entirely dedicated to our personal christmas celebrations and adventures. So.

Welcome to "The Ultimate Christmas Story"

Christmas Eve:

Great. It all started on Christmas Eve. We both

had to work. Not a big deal. It was only until 12:30 and we weren't having a crowd for Dinner. Which brings us to the theme of our christmas. Eating. We have been eating non-stop since christmas eve. This post will mostly consist of our food menus.

Anyway, Christmas Eve we invited our ex-pat friend Chrissy over for Vigilia-Christmas Eve Fish Dinner for those of you that don't know the polish word.

We ate:

Pierogies (made from scratch- first time ever!!)

Baked stuffed shrimp (medium shrimp because we couldn't find jumbo, but still delicious)

White fish battered and fried (no idea what kind of white fish, we picked one at random)

Mashed Potatoes

Candied Yams

Stuffed Mushrooms

and Bernaise sauce! Yay! my mom sent us some in a care package. What's christmas dinner with out bernaise sauce?! Boring. That's what.

For dessert we had:

sugar cookies (boring i know, but we were going to be so full)

After Chrissy left we opened cards and gifts that we had gotten from our co-teachers and then we watched "A Muppet Family Christmas"

Christmas Day:

We woke up and opened stocking presents. Jamie got me a whole bunch of art supplies and candy and I got him a whole bunch of games and a waffle iron.

So. for breakfast we had:

Peirogies

Potatoes

Eggs (all with bernaise)

and Waffles! I found this great recipie online that is mostly all sugar and milk. Delicious.

We lounged around for a few hours called lots of family and friends and then had lunch.

A co-teacher of mine bought a MASSIVE about of bulgogi (korean BBQ) and gave it to me on Christmas Eve so we ate that.

And then for dinner we had Salmon, Asparagus, the rest of the pierogies and more potatoes. (and salad).

Second Day of Christmas

The next morning we were going to have waffles again, but realized that we had used all of our butter (2 pounds of it) so we suffered with omlettes and potatoes.

New Years Eve

For New Years we went Ice Skating at the Peace Gate in Olympic Park and made Mondu Gu (dumping soup) and White Russians for lunch. then headed downtown to have dinner and drinks with our friend Christina. We ended up at a cozy little Canadian Bar with live music, champagne at midnight and a fun crowd. We hung out, got our New Years Countdown and kiss and then packed up to go back home.

The Rest of the 12 Days of Christmas

Most evenings we've been sitting by the fire (Mom Keller sent us a DVD of a fire place), admiring our charming christmas tree, and watching christmas movies. We're watched one each night for the 12 days.

Little Christmas AKA The Three Kings AKA the Epiphany

In Shannon's house they celebrate three kings, so as you can see we've been celebrating all 12 days. But we also decided to exchange gifts on that day and have a delicious dinner/party. We actually had two. ON the kings we invited our Winter Camp co-workers over for drinks and on Saturday the 9th we invited our Co-teachers over for another little shindig.

Exciting things about the Ultimate Christmas:

Drinks:

We've learned how to make Eggnog from scratch! Of course, without a blender it takes some time, but it's certainly added to the christmas spirit and we're really excited about our new LionKiller Specialty.

Ice Skating:

Super Cheap (1000 won included skate time and rentals) and in korea, the one syllable word "skate" becomes 4 syllables. "suh kA ee tuh"

Snow:

Not a super amount but enough to cover the streets and sidewalks. And thankfully in korea they dont' seem to plow or salt so it feels like a winters worth of snow your trudging through!