October 27, 2008

• A Rich Thick Taste

  Dear Folks,

     I am at school now, on a break, so I'll write this in patches.  I have ten-minute breaks, and enjoy them immensely.  I have a good relationship with the vice principal of my elementary school. Right now, he is in front of me practicing his golf swing, inside the staff room.  The weather outside is splendid.  I could not imagine better weather. 

  Of course, I love autumn.  The skies are crisp and blue, with wisps of white clouds.  This morning, as well as yesterday was quite nippy.  When I was young, I favored summer.  Now, the fall is best for me.  I don't know why.  I do know, though, that I am less active, and savor my time indoors, with a friend and a cup of jo or tea ... even though I have recently decided I need to cut down on my caffeine intake. 

  It wasn't like I was imbibing that much anyway.  I would guess that I ingested about 1.5 cups per day of coffee on the average.  Still, that was too much for me, what with my busy schedule and need for rest on demand.  It's not like I imagine for my retirement, where I could just sleep a bit later or take a nap about any time I please to make up for a lack of sleep one night.  With that in mind, I drink no more coffee for now, and nurture the hope that I might enjoy the stuff again in my retirement. 

  My mother does.  She is now 79, having just had a birthday.  However, my father remained quite sensitive to caffeine all his life.  I may be just like he was, and have to find some other pleasure.  And that would not be so hard.  I enjoyed blackstrap molasses mixed with brewer's yeast, and then hot water, to make a nice rich tea, when I was in Boone, North Carolina.  I loved the rich, thick taste. 

  Love, Padooker

  Edit:  Yep, we don't eat so much anymore.  Food prices have skyrocketed here in South Korea, going out the proverbial roof.  In response, we just buy less food.  Buying less food, at least in our family, precipitates less food consumption.  Consumption be done about it?  Well, I dunno.

  Still, we get by.  Naturally, I cut out the fancy food first.  We stopped eating the little 200 millimeter individual chocolate milk cartons.  They bind them together in groups of three and used to charge 1150 won last year for our favorite kind, where this year, they flat out charge 1800, and don't even throw in any of the little digits in an attempt to eke out a little more from the consumer.  To that, I suppose they just lost all reserve and are now absorbed by their own inflation, and unvarnished for it.

  I pay 4000 won for 1.8 liters of plain white milk, not entirely blue john, as that is paradoxically more expensive, but the low fat version, which seems to be an acceptable trade-off between health and price.  The fat milk is still the cheapest, but I am not pouring that down my throat.  We're not that bad off just yet. 

  But I have noticed that I stopped buying black rice to spice up the color in our rice cooking keg.  Stopped that about a year or so ago.  And if that don't beat all, lately here I have gone to mixing my natural brown rice with a kind of brown rice which has been partially polished, on account a how come why for it is about 40 percent cheaper, if not more.  If you need a more exact measure, let me know, and I'll see what I can round up for you.

  And we're not just cracking down on food consumption; we're cracking down on cavities.  After an embarrassing visit to the doctor last week, where each child had at least one small cavity, that is, except duteous My Shining Knight (who does everything the right way like some goodie goodie from up North, a carpetbagger, if you will).  So, now if any of my children want to beg and get past door number one (Moi) to eat some of the students snacks, which include chocolate at times, they must agree with their mother to brush each tooth a certain number of times with considerable force for each block of chocolate they eat, and it just gets to be so much that I heard my daughter say this very afternoon, "No, it's not worth it."   Heh, heh, heh.  That'll learn'em.

   

  • 9:39 pm
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