This weekend was a weekend of culinary indulgence; mass consumption of food and alcoholic beverages. My liver needed a serious detox. Memorial Day weekend guys! I ate an incredible amount of food and drank all kinds of alcoholic beverages.
On Saturday, I invited my friends over for a sang gyup sal (pork belly) party. My finals were over and a good friend passed an important exam with flying colors. So, we all went food shopping together and decided to make it a sleep-over. It’s fun preparing dinner when you have friends and drinks keeping you company. Koreans love grilled pork belly. My sister read somewhere that the majority of Koreans’ caloric intake is from grilled pork belly and soju. It’s not hard to believe.
Sang gyup sal is usually grilled on a rounded, stone top where the fat drips down and collects in a well. Then it’s wrapped in lettuce along with other condiments. Garlic, spicy pepper, spicy pepper paste, scallions etc. It is then called ssam.
I took some pictures:
ssam:
This ssam is wrapped in romaine lettuce with grilled pork and garlic, perilla, pickled ume, alfalfa sprouts, and I think that’s dandelion leaves or it could be chrysanthemum leaves. The pickled ume most people are familiar with is probably the japanese version. But the one in the ssam was pickled by my aunt in Korea using organic ume and spicy pepper paste. It goes very well with pork. Salty and sweet.
Sunday consisted of brunch with japanese style curry over rice, fresh fruits and more drinking. and more drinking and more drinking. and lots of laughing and tv watching.
Memorial Day came around and we got together again for a BBQ in a friend’s backyard. And of course, more drinking and eating. We grilled more pork belly, ribs, shrimp and octopus. The weather in NYC mellowed out by Memorial Day, although the wind was still there. At least it wasn’t raining.
Our plans to go swimming the next day to work off the calories didn’t come to fruition, obviously. All in all, the combination of food, friends and conversation never fail to disappoint me. It always ends up with lots of belly clutching laughter and more importantly, special memories.
i can’t wait for the mass comsumption of food and alcohol! hahaha!