Korean Cultural Center of LA

On one of my first trips to LA and Ktown this weekend I attended the Korean festival for a few short hours and attempted to catch up with the KCCLA (Korean Cultural Center of LA).  Unfortunately, I missed meeting any of the staff on site. They seemed to take a long break the day I was visiting. Instead, I collected some colorful post cards promoting the KCCLA and met a fun volunteer maintaining the booth but shy of the camera.

Briefly, the Korean Cultural Center of LA promotes Korean culture and heritage in LA while opening up its doors to the public welcoming individuals to come and learn about the rich culture and traditions of Korea. Their facilities include a museum, auditorium, art gallery, and library full of Korea related materials. The center offers many programs from Korean language learning groups to cultural workshops and film viewing nights.  I haven't had the opportunity to tour their facilities since I'm rarely in the area but that day may come!  Please check out the cultural center if you are in LA or have time to catch some of their events.

For more information see their website listed here: http://www.kccla.org/english_/home_.asp

Here are some pics of the KCCLA booth and the post cards I collected at the Korean Cultural Festival!

The booth lacking the cute volunteer in the pic.

The reverse of each card is different. These were some of my favorites!

Fun with food: Seaweed and egg wraps.

What do you get with little money, few food options, few cooking utensils, a large appetite, and a bit of creativity? Possibly some scrumptious food.

I rarely do very personal posts, but here's a fun food post just for the heck of it. I recently moved to the southern most city in California for a year of volunteer service with a pretty cool NGO. As a result, I'm on a tight budget and also in the process of looking for a place to live, getting resettled, collecting items, etc. Since I didn't bring more than my suitcases on this new adventure, I've had to cut a few corners in the food department. Thankfully there are a few things at my current residence.

The past several days I've been craving seaweed and kimbap (rice and good fixings wrapped in seaweed) for a take-to-work lunch meal.  I didn't have any kimbap makings, but there happened to be some small seasoned seaweed package and tuna I purchased the previous week. My mission was clear: I had to to put these food items to use and satisfy the kimbap craving senses of my tongue. I snatched them up taking the the egg and carrot along with them. Usually you would never use the small seaweed or seasoned seaweed for these wraps, but what can I say. I was fairly desperate.

So I took to the kitchen and had some fun.  Here's what my hunger and creativity came up with for my lunch the next day and for my evening meal!

The makings of my lunch for tomorrow: seasoned seaweed pieces, tuna, minute rice, carrot, and egg.
I scrambled the egg and fried it in a frying pan. I was very satisfied with the flat pancake of an egg.  

Cute little kimbap rolls for tomorrow's lunch.  Crossing my fingers this will turn out and not be too soggy.
A few more to come.  Half of them landed in my mouth before making it into the container. : (

The leftovers... 

...became my dinner.

wallah.  Egg wrap sandwich. 

After eating my little dinner, I thought of omurice. It never dawned on me how similar this is to omurice. I think I'll have to venture into the omurice recipe world on the net and come back again very soon. Although it is more of a Japanese food and name, omurice is very popular in Korea!  

Yesterday I popped into the Korean festival in LA for a few hours.  I'll be sure to post a few pics within the next 24 hours. Be sure to look out for them! Have a great day. 

Chuseok!

On September 12th Koreans celebrated Chuseok. This is Korea's Autumn Harvest/Thanksgiving holiday! Koreans usually leave the city to gather with their relatives that often live in the shigol or countryside. Together they share delicious food as they celebrate this time of harvest while paying respect to their ancestors and enjoying family time. They eat a sticky rice cake type of food called songpyeon.

Photo courtesy of: cafe.naver.com

For the Chinese/Taiwanese and Vietnamese, they celebrate the Mooncake or mid-Autumn Festival on the same day (the 15th day of the 8th month on the lunar calendar).  Their food of choice is the mooncake!

Photo courtesy of: www.sinica.edu.tw

I hope you enjoyed your holidays and are happy back at work today! Oh joy, yes.