Mom and Dad's home cookin'

I didn't wholly realize how much I'd missed it, however much I'd cogitated on it back in my studio apartment in Korea. To date, since I've been home, I've been treated to:

• Mom's spinach dip
• Rice Krispie treats
• magic cookie bars*
• spaghetti
• nachos
• quesadillas
• pickles 'n' meat**
• fried tilapia
• Dad's salsa
• Mom's hummus

And man, hasn't it all been delicious! In addition to these gems, there've been a few store-bought foods I've very much enjoyed having again, such as:

• root beer (Mug)
• Wheat Thins
• Kettle Chips
• real hot dogs (beef)
• Mexican food
• Drambuie
• Swiss cheese
• good beer

Might seem weird to you that I missed these, but I sure did. All of them were impossible to get in Korea, or else were extremely expensive. The hot dogs there were only shadowy reflections of real hot dogs, hence my emphasis on that adjective. The two popular home-brewed beer brands, Hite and Cass, wouldn't even stand up to Budweiser, which just goes to show how bad they were. We encountered some Mexican food in Western bars and clubs in large cities, but even this was strange (see my entry about the El Paso Restaurant in Jeju: Day Eight to learn more). You couldn't find a good potato chip to save your soul. As for the home-cooked food, it just tastes American, if you know what I mean. Anyone who's had Koreanized spaghetti won't hesitate to say that it's pretty good; it just doesn't taste like what you're used to. It's truly invaluable to be back on my home turf and have spaghetti that tastes familiar again. * These are simple to make: melt some butter in a large oven-safe dish, add some crumbled-up graham cracker crumbs, cover with a layer of sweetened condensed milk, embed an entire package of milk chocolate chips into that, then sprinkle a protective layer of shredded coconut over the top of that, and bake for 25 minutes. The butter soaks into the cracker crumbs and makes a delicious firm underlayer; the chocolate chips melt into the condensed milk; and the coconut browns just slightly, creating a truly mind-blasting and sweet dessert. ** This is an old German dish passed down in my family from generation to generation. Simply grind up some bread-and-butter pickles and some balogna, mix that with enough mayonnaise (I prefer Miracle Whip) to make a paste out of it, and spread it thick between two pieces of bread. Most awesome sandwich known to humanity, right there.