1.320
21 (Fri) November 2010
Abalone & Beef & Broccoli & Pine Mushrooms
2.5
by MIL
at their home
-Apgujeong, Gangnam, Seoul, Korea-
with the Family, In-Laws
I went 307 meals between this one and the last time that I had to eat dinner cooked by the mother-in-law (see most recently 1.013 Daegu Maeun Tang). Tonight, she busted out all the fancy ingredients in her freezer, so I didn’t have the heart to decline. In part, I gotta blame DJ, who’s recent affliction with what appears to be hand-foot-mouth disease set the wheels in motion: the swollen gums have really killed his appetite of late, rendering him incapable of eating much more than ice cream for the past few days, which got his eager beaver grandmother all frantic and desperate to come up with some kind of magic cure-all to replenish his nutritional deficits, the result being a stock of the most expensive food items available in Korea: abalone, hanwoo, and pine mushrooms. She then made a stir-fry with the left-over ingredients. While I have nothing against any of these on its own, I’m not sure how well they work together. It’s like a French chef tossing together truffles, caviar, and foie gras into the same dish. At least MIL’s heart is in the right place.