Pfft. Every post can’t just be excuses about why I haven’t been posting, so I am going to try to at least tack a recipe on the end this time around. Feel free to skip to the end if that’s what you’re after. I have been busy, though. Is there anything quite as thick and long as summer on the peninsula? I’ve been waking up early for sunrise walks by the Han, before the day gets too heavy. It helps me clear my head — you’d be surprised, maybe, how busy this city remains throughout the weekdays, unless you rise at dawn.

Around the last time I posted, I had concocted a somewhat harebrained Plan B before I’d even given A a try, but then somehow the universe turned over and spat out a handful of opportunities, like it always seems to do. Self-sabotage is one of my fortes, but something always seems to get in the way. Translation work has been surprisingly steady (and challenging, interesting and decently paid). I’ve had some god’s-honest writing work as well, all of it dropped into my lap. I’m working now on running out and getting some for myself. Probably the most pleasant news is that there will very likely be some literary translation to come, which I thought would be out of reach for a while yet, but like I said, opportunities.

I’m not saying there’s a god, or anything like that, but what I feel like lately is that whatever’s kept me going so far in life seems to be fed up with the begging off and bowing out. Korea was a plan B, teaching was a plan B, language school, grad school, maybe even the magazine was a plan B. Or maybe I just let stuff happen the way it needed to. It’s hard to know. But how I’m feeling now is like the table’s been set right in front of me, and I’ve got to do is pick up a fork and dig in.

So I’m going to give that a shot.

Speaking of tables and digging in…

I’ve become very fixated on rye flour. I’ve been subbing it into everything — brownies, muffins, pizza dough, pancakes.  There’s something about that rich, slightly salty, earthy flavor. It wasn’t that long ago that our wheat flour used to taste like something. Now we remove all the flavor in the processing. But rye’s flavor remains, and I like experiencing the flour as an element of taste, as well, I guess. I’ve also been putting black pepper in all my desserts, which I will get to eventually. I promise I’m not pregnant.

These rye blueberry pancakes made for a nice Liberation Day brunch this past Monday, which was followed by a Hitchcock marathon. It was a nice weekend, and the last one, I hope, we spend huddled inside under the air-conditioning. I don’t mean to be that person, but fall is sort of almost here? Indulge me. We all have our wishful thoughts.

Continue reading Rye Blueberry Pancakes and Where the Hell I’ve Been