Sort of. I’ve mentioned several times in the past couple of weeks, either in emails or chat sessions to folks back home that life is pretty stress free here for me. I make decent money, my rent is free and the bills are cheap. I’m not rich by any means, but the stress of not having enough is completely gone. Unlike living in the US, where, for the past several years I had virtually no health insurance – the ‘what if’ of should something happen (and usually did) was always there. I always seemed to scrape by – barely. I just don’t have those worries any more.

I’ve also mentioned recently that my biggest stress is what to make for dinner. That probably sounded flippant to some, but the truth is, that really is both the truth and a  source of stress. After having lived in the land of a million genres of food for most of my  life,  having just Korean food doesn’t cut it. I really do like their grub, but I’m used to having Mexican one night, steak the next, Italian another and having Sushi or Chinese the next. The point is, I had a plethora of places to placate my palate back home, but here it’s Korean, or cooking in my own kitchen.

Now, I’m a pretty good cook (for a guy) but that’s just part of it. First, one must find the ingredients to make the food one wishes. Raw materials are easy to come by – beef, chicken, pork, fish and plenty of fresh veggies are everywhere. Try and find some spices, though, and salt and pepper are likely the only thing one will find in the average Korean store. I had a hankering for basil to go with some tomatoes I tossed over pasta. No luck. I made of pot of split-pea soup using some fresh shelled peas I scored at the open-air market the other day. It turned out pretty good, but a bay leaf would have made it perfect.   Tonight, I’m making garlic-lemon-butter chicken with mushrooms. Some capers would sit nicely on top of that – but only in my dreams.  I could even make my own barbeque sauce, but the chili powder available here is strictly the five-alarm variety.

So, if I sounded as I I didn’t have a care in the world, that’s just not so.  Finding the goods to make western style dishes is something many foreigners spend a significant amount of time on. It might be dried oregano at this store and chicks peas at another, but eventually everything can be cobbled together.  I long for a cupboard stocked with all the things an American boy could cook with.

A big, gnarly-ass bacon cheeseburger with tater-tots wouldn’t hurt, either.