An intro to Korean historical dramas

I don’t watch many movies and I can’t remember the last time I watched anything on TV.  But I do have a special affinity for foreign films and Korean historical dramas.  Anything with English subtitles is fair game.  Hmmm, I take that back.  Anything clean with English subtitles is fair game.

I went through most of my library’s selection of foreign films several years ago.  It didn’t matter to me which language because I have yet to hear one that doesn’t sound beautiful to my ears.  I loved how the films represented various aspects of their respective cultures – traditions, values, music, etc.  Absolutely fascinating to me.

So perhaps it’s no wonder that I eventually came across Korean dramas and fell in love with them.  There are two main types of Korean drama: modern and historical.  The modern dramas tend to be a bit too much drama (as well as predictable themes and somewhat shallow story lines) for my preferences.  But the historical dramas…  WOW!

I love action and believe me, historical Korean dramas give me plenty of it.  Martial arts and sword-fighting galore!  Some of it is a bit (or a lot) fantastical – clearly impossible for even the most talented fighter in real-life.  But what adventure and magnificent displays of strength, strategy, and training!

And I love observing and learning about traditions – whether it has to do with attention to detail on how a meal is served, being able to identify someone’s status/authority by where they sit or how others interact with them, and so much more.  So much is conveyed in these historical dramas about South Korea’s values for honor, integrity, loyalty, diligence, hard work, patience, endurance, and even forgiveness.  You can even see how those qualities are demonstrated in some of the “bad guys” whose loyalties are unfortunately misaligned, sometimes not of their own choosing but due to their family line or various circumstances.

I like that there are tragedies in many of the stories.  A good guy might be wrongfully imprisoned and suffer great torture; another might be wounded in battle and not survive.  A loved one (parent, fiancé, etc) may be exiled permanently.  But isn’t this more realistic than always making a miraculous recovery or escaping a wrongful ruling?  Sometimes there are deep, personal sacrifices (even unto death) because there’s something more important, something nobler, than preserving self.

And most of the historical dramas have been very clean!  When their idea of a scandal is taking someone by the hand or wrist, or hugging someone in public…. well, it’s pretty safe to say that I don’t need to worry about inappropriate scenes.  The language is clean too.  Granted, it’s translated to English subtitles so I might not be aware of what is really spoken, but I can definitely handle “You scoundrel!” better than some of the colorful language in American PG-rated movies.  :-)

Language, music, culture, values, martial arts – it’s a win-win for me!!

In my dreams...

Do you remember your dreams in the morning?  If you do, are they typically filled with nonsense or do they make sense?  I often remember my dreams and they tend to be fairly realistic and logical, meaning it’s feasible that the events could actually occur.  So for this post, I want to share two short dreams from earlier this week.

In the first dream, it was my last day at my current place of employment.  (No, I’m not really going anywhere or planning on anything so who knows where that came from.)  Some co-workers threw me a surprise farewell party and brought out a cake.  Suddenly I had a dilemma.  I don’t eat white flour anymore and really don’t care for white cake anyway.  Icing wasn’t an issue because most people don’t mind if you scrape that off.  But you can’t scrape off the cake too because then there’s nothing left!

But these folks went out of their way to try to do something nice in their own way.  Would I eat a piece for their benefit, or would I try to decline as nicely as possible citing my changes in nutrition?  (It would be one thing to indulge in something you would actually enjoy and another thing to eat something that really doesn’t appeal to you AND isn’t good for you just to please someone else.)  I didn’t want them to feel guilty for not being aware of the specific changes I had made.  That’s when I woke up but I wish I could have seen my choice.  If this was you in real life, what would you do??

In my second dream, I went to the gym for a personal training session.  This time it was outside because my trainer needed to multi-task and prepare a group of about 50 people for some sort of choreographed demonstration.  He got me started with a million reps of something (ok fine, only 100 but it was a LOT… I guess he thought it would keep me occupied or something), and then worked with the group to keep them on task (he could keep an eye on them and me at the same time).

Suddenly a badger showed up and attempted to bite one of the nearby ladies in the group!  It caused a bit of commotion but disappeared again and the group continued practicing.  Suddenly the badger reappeared near me!  I was concerned that someone would get hurt or the poor badger would get hurt in the ruckus so I quickly grabbed it by the back of the neck.  It was a feisty thing but I hung on!  Someone brought a box so we could keep it contained during the workout/practice and then let it go afterward.  Wow, what was that dream all about??  How did a badger get in my dream???  I had a good laugh when I woke up.

Workout high

Alert!!  Alert!!  Serious workout high!!  (Can it be called serious if you’re grinning uncontrollably??)

This morning’s personal training session was a pad workout.  I’ve been a bit eager (um, slight understatement) to try this out.  I’ve been warned several times that it’s very addicting – that people don’t want to go back to other workouts once they’ve tried a pad workout.  Well, today I found that it’s only partially true for me.  I absolutely LOVED it and I want more, more, more!!  But I’d also be reluctant to give up on the other workouts.  I want it ALL!

I told my trainer not to give up on me with the other stuff.  I don’t want to stop working on strength, etc even though I already can’t wait for another round of pad workouts!  I don’t want to have to choose.  I trust my trainer to be the expert and to know what’s best for me.

Being a newbie with combo moves, I definitely didn’t get it all right.  Sometimes I circled when I was supposed to hook or I crossed when I was supposed to uppercut.  At one point I had to tell myself not to think so hard and just keep my eye on the pads.  That helped me relax mentally and respond a little faster.  (At least it felt a little faster to me, though my trainer might disagree, haha.)  I loved that he encouraged me to hit harder – sometimes I needed that reminder because I was too focused on the combo series or watching the pads.

I was drenched when it was over but what a thrill!!  Pad workouts, oh how I love you!!

As I freshened up and got ready for work afterward, I noticed that my arms were trembling.  It was a bit comical trying to coordinate one hand holding my hand mirror and the other hand holding my eyeliner – both hands shaking at different intervals.  But I loved the evidence of a great workout!  And what a high!!

Soup-er Delicious

The sudden turn of weather heralds the season for soup!  I’m a fan of soup but not so fond of the preparation, cook time, and cleanup (depending on the type of soup, of course).

Magic Bullet to the rescue!!  Last night I tried Magic Bullet’s homemade tomato soup recipe.  I might report on that later but tonight’s feature is butternut squash soup which was unbelievably delicious!  Quite possibly the world’s best butternut squash soup!  (It’s completely irrelevant that I’ve probably only had butternut squash soup once before in my life...)  I would definitely order this at a restaurant.  And it was HEALTHY too!!

OK, here we go:  cubed butternut squash, onion, garlic, low-sodium chicken stock (I might use vegetable stock next time to make it authentically vegetarian), honey, nutmeg, coriander, and black pepper.  The recipe I used as a guideline included butter and olive oil to cook the squash and onion.  However I didn’t take that route and was able to eliminate those items (and their calories) completely.  I took the picture with olive oil because I thought I might add some for flavor at the end if needed, but I didn’t need it after all.

Since I knew butternut squash would take several minutes to soften in the microwave (as opposed to barely a minute for the fresh tomato I used in the previous night’s tomato soup), I used a glass bowl instead of the bullet cup (which is microwave safe for a few minutes only).  Basically, I dumped all ingredients (without chopping up the onion) in the glass bowl and microwaved for about 5 minutes.  Then I poured everything into the cup, blended for just a few seconds, and TA DA!!

Fast, easy, healthy, and ridiculously tasty!  Now that I’ve tried this first run, I see many more bowls (or cups) of butternut squash soup in my future…

Try this at home

When a dish at a restaurant inspires me to try it at home, it’s GOTTA be good!  Well, that’s the case here with this special omelette.  While vacationing at the beach recently, I accompanied friends on a breakfast excursion to a quaint coffee shop they had frequented in years past.  While the shop itself wasn’t expansive, the menu options were endless.  Even selecting from just the omelette section was a challenge.

I decided I would try something unique, something a little different than I would normally find on other breakfast menus.  There was no shortage of those options either.  I finally settled on one that included spinach, tomatoes, pesto, and fresh mozzarella.  I assumed the filling would be cooked with the egg, but oh what a pleasant surprise to discover EVERYTHING fresh and beautifully laid in the centerfold of a light, fluffy omelette.

I could not believe the flavor when I took my first bite!  AH  MAAY  ZING!  Definitely worth of trying at home.  And so I did.  In fact, this was the first time I was inspired to make my own pesto.  I had heard it was easy and that you could pretty much use whatever greenery and nuts you want (or happen to have on hand).  I had spinach and almonds on hands so I used those instead of fresh basil and pinenuts.  DELISH!  No loss here!  And who knew it was so easy?!  OK, apparently a LOT of people knew when I browsed for recipes and healthy versions...  I also picked up a tip to use an ice cube tray to portion-freeze the pesto you make.  You rarely need more than a cube or two for a recipe anyway since it’s so packed with flavor.  [My head is spinning with new menu options now…]

So this evening I decided to try my own version of this omelette.  I intended to use egg whites or egg substitute but I forgot.  No big deal.  And I didn’t have fresh mozzarella but I did have reduced-fat, shredded mozzarella.  While the beaten eggs were cooking and setting in the pan, I diced up ½ tomato, opened a bag of baby spinach, and heated one cube of frozen pesto.  Once the eggs were done, I lightly sprinkled some cheese on one side, laid a bed of spinach and tomatoes, and drizzled the pesto on top.  Then I folded over the other side of egg and slid the omelette onto a plate.  I added a few strawberries to the plate for color and diversity of food groups.  :-)

Of course it didn’t look quite as fluffy and attractive as at the restaurant, but hey, they’ve had a lot more practice.  And people are paying them for it.  Since that’s not the case here, all I needed to worry about was getting a fork.  I took my first bite and what was my response?  OH YES!  Again, not 100% the same, but delicious nonetheless!  Oh, happy am I!!