Follow the River North

So, what happened was, I had this post all written up and saved in my drafts, ready to go up for White Day, on March 14th, with some minor final edits. Shortly before that day arrived, some major stuff went down in my personal life, and the blog and everything else fell by the wayside for about a month.

I’m on the mend and ready to move forward now. Some other things happened in the meantime that added to the delay, like my back going out so severely that I was on bedrest for over a week — I’m still not fully recovered, but I am able to sit at my desk for longer periods now and am going so stir crazy from being trapped in the house outside of anything more than a short walk that if I don’t do something that at least feels productive, I may delve headlong into an existential crisis I’m not sure I’ll recover from.

2017 feels like a glitch in the machine — a major one. I know I am far from the only one who feels this way. Aside from all of the political upheaval back home, things have been, shall we say, tense on the peninsula this past month. It seems we’ve made it through the most worrisome period unscathed and un-plunged into an unnecessary war. Nonetheless, I will feel much better once South Korea has her own leader at the helm once again, at the beginning of May.

Since I feel like the original post had some information about a particular set of Korean holidays that may be of interest to some, I will leave that bit in tact, although it is no longer timely. The good thing about chocolate is it never goes out of season. Moreover, it is a classic stress-eating food, and although you may not be having the particular kind of whale of a time with life I am at the moment, I’m pretty sure most of the world is stressed right now for one reason or another. Chocolates for everyone.

In Korea, there are two Valentine’s days. Well, two versions of the holiday — three if you count the one for singles. On Valentine’s Day, women traditionally give chocolates or other gifts to men. Someone very clever (a confectionary company in Japan, as it turns out) chose yet another day a month later for the men to return the sentiment — White Day on March 14th. A month following that the singles finally get their moment with Black Day, when it’s customary to eat a Chinese-Korean dish of black noodles called jajangmyeon. Black Day is my favorite, because it is a unique kind of Korean-funny, and manages to be sarcastic and self-pitying at the same time.

While the holidays are rarely celebrated by people over 25, B and I tend to celebrate them on a whim. In years past, before we were married, I made him some truly elaborate cakes to celebrate Valentine’s, but the day kind of snuck up on me this year, and anyway, he’s gotten so used to coming home to a cake or some other baked thing that it’s become truly difficult to impress him.

So instead, I went for White Day chocolates. After tasting the hallabong orange syrup I made for the Persian love cake, I couldn’t get it out of my head. I kept wondering what would happen if I reduced it down and used it as a spread or filling for something.

Good things, as it turns out. These chocolates, to be more specific.

The process here is a bit time-consuming (and messy), but the chocolates themselves are not difficult to make. It will go more smoothly if you happen to have a filled chocolate mold, but it is completely possible to do it without one. In fact, you could even use an ice cube tray if that’s what it comes down to.

Worth the mess, in my opinion, but if you’d rather not fuss about with the chocolate, you can always just make the marmalade and save it in a jar as a nice spread for toast or scones (which I will be posting a recipe for next week). And if you have any extra candied orange peel (and you should), those can always be dipped in any extra chocolate and eaten as candies on their own.