Son of a Chef

Blogging?

Well, this was a month that I committed myself back to pushing on social media. That… meant a lot of different things.

First, I’m trying to get over the shame of wanting to be a successful blogger, instagrammer or whatever. I’m not sure where this came from but it’s a hassle for sure. There seems to be such an air about this. “You should make art and be a purist about that,” seems to be a pervasive attitude.

I have been trying to push back on this. It’s okay to post art and want for people to see it. It’s fun to share the photos I take. I don’t know why it’s so different than the old days when we’d compare prints out of the darkroom but so it goes. Is all this not an advanced form of gallery exhibits and shows? Some days I think so, others I am not so sure.

Photography.

Lots of cameras shot this month and plenty of film developed. I fell in love with the Nikon F2as, confirmed that I didn’t break my Pen-D when I dropped it last summer, shot plenty of X-H1 with the 40mm Konica and snagged a Samsung “toy,” point and shoot.

Oh! And I got a good array of film stocks from various sources. Some slide film, some Kodak vision and double-x film. All stocks that I like in 35mm and 120. Not pictured is the Ilford Ortho that I bought later, too. Nice stuff, really. I’ll drop a review of it later.

Food.

Food was great this month. I had a few things that were fantastic. Up in Suwon, we went to a few different places that had fantastic offerings. We also walked through the traditional market and went to chicken street for 용성통닭. I’m gonna leave the chicken out of this post because I plan to make a video about it sometime, so you’ll have to keep posted on that!

We stopped by a Vietnamese place in Seoul. We had walked through Dongdaemun to look for a few things. I saw some amazing cameras… but avoided pulling the trigger. There was a Sony Mavica and a Nikonos that I almost walked away with… but did not.

The Vietnamese food was quite filling. The pho was good, a little too spicy for Minyoung and the mara pho was also good. It was actually less spicy than the pho, which was not what we were expecting. The restaurant was charming and I would return sometime!

One dish that’s always a treat whenever we try it is the 난반치킨 at Duckhee bar in Cheonan. I exposed some friends to this for the first time and they were stunned at how good it was. Nanban chicken is a fusion dish of sorts that combines a salad cream and fried chicken on top of veggies. It pairs with highballs well. It’s always delicious and nearly every table had order this. It has become the bar’s signature menu.

Back up in Suwon we tried a new bar that had an interesting menu. Their chocolate highball was the special and it was quite tasty. They said nobody had been ordering it, which was not too surprising. The taste, however, was worth it! Highly recommended.

Last, we had something we had meant to try for a while now. We made it up to the north side of town for a chocolate covered pretzel. This was fantastic. I don’t get these types of flavors often in Korea. Everytime I think about it, I want another one.

The bakery’s literature says the baker spent some time in Germany learning how to make pretzels properly. It gets pretty close to the taste that I know from when I was a kid.

Well, that’s it. A month wrap up down. I did a great job sticking to my social media goals this month. There was a little bit of growth and some awesome action on threads. I gotta keep up the momentum for a bit longer, I think. That should become easier as spring comes.

Tonight we’re off to a really nice part of Incheon and I’m looking forward to sharing pictures and stories of food. Until then, goodbye for now.