Constant Beginnings

just beyond our fence is a huge tree. i say huge because our house is on a pretty high hill overlooking a cliff of sorts. anyway, this tree peeks beyond the cliff. on this tree are green prickly balls. they are the strangest looking things. i've been wondering about them since first seeing them. in fact a few weeks ago,  i climbed over the binju ditch (not sure about the spelling) and tried to reach out and grab one. no luck. fast forward to yesterday. i ran to a portable classroom to escort one of my students who happens to be korean. she noticed one of these spiky balls on the ground, picked it up and began peeling away the casing. low and behold---a chestnut! what an odd discovery. she knew just what it was and began to describe her family's method of cooking them. the ironic part of this story is that she is severely language impaired, yet teaching me a little something. they soak them to soften the shell, then add the actual nut to other dishes.

this is the mystery item, although the picture was a late idea. it looks a bit nastier than it was when dinner was served. so we survived our first weekend in korea. the kids and i are slowly adjusting our sleep schedule, but that being said, we have slept some crazy hours in the past few days. take today, for example, we laid around--sleeping off and on, until 10:30 this morning, took a nap around 3 and didn't wake up until 7. it is now almost 10 at night and mya is out for the night with the rest of us to follow her lead shortly. i guess we are all exhausted. anyway, back to the post---i love to cook and i am pretty decent at it. thankfully, i had great teachers along the way--my mom and grandma. they are/were awesome cooks. i also love to cook for others. really. i am not the most social person in the world, but i really love making something wonderful for others to enjoy. our vision for the rest of our life is to entertain--alot. night number one of entertaining is officia...