A tasty good time

Dave and I took his mom to H-Mart today.  H-Mart is a grocery store that sells a lot of Korean, Japanese, and Chinese food.  The one that's down the street from us is the only one in New England so people come from all over to go shopping there.  Dave's mom fell in love with it when my brother in law took her for the first time.  Despite living here for a few years now, I'd never been and it turned out to be a lot of fun.  It was cool to listen to her speak Korean to many of the associates as she tried the many samples and to watch her run through the store.  The music made it for me though.  I love J-Pop and Korean Pop (is it K-pop?).  The three of us danced in the aisles much to the humor of our fellow shoppers.  

Once we had collected all of our ingredients, we went back to his mom's house where she expertly showed us how to cut the vegetables (also a giant watermelon) and how to make kimpap.  Kimpap is the basics of sushi with just the rice and the seaweed layer.   We had vegetables rolls adding  cucumbers, carrots, avocado, and pickled radish to the mix.  It was so incredibly good!  It seems relatively straightforward.  Even seasoning the rice and veggies didn't seem intimidating which is huge for someone who quite literally fears the kitchen.  Of course, she made it look incredibly easy.  When Dave and I get around to trying it, it will probably be quite the challenge.  We spent so much time "snacking" while we were making it that by the time it was entirely finished we were too full to sit down and eat it.  

We're not supposed to refrigerate it as it will cause the rice to harden so we've just placed it in a cooler with a single ice pack in the hopes that it will keep it cool enough to keep the veggies ripe but not too cold to harden the rice.  I really hope it works because they were so good and I want so much more.  I just do not have the stomach for it.  We had a great day and I'm really happy that I got to come along. It was a lot of fun and a tasty good time.