Saturday found Tex and myself in search of some exotic sweet potatoes and some fresh kimchee. The same old super market varieties, Beauraguard and Garnet, paled in taste and texture to some of their Asian counter parts we had sampled just before Thanksgiving. The plain jane Kimchee at Safeway just doesn’t cut it once you have tasted the real McCoy.

We found a street vender set up and roasting these purple skinned little beauties just outside a Korean market on our last trip to town and since we were in the neighborhood we decided to wheel on over to see if the young man was still plying his trade.

Yep…same guy, same sweet potato, piping hot and delicious. More on this a little later.



We walked in to the building to find it crowded with shoppers doing what shoppers do. I found this place some months ago while cruising highway 99 in Federal Way, Wa. just north of 320th on 316th. The gigantic produce department that featured some of the freshest fruit and vegetables outside a traditional farmers market impressed me. The plus here was a huge selection of strange and very exotic looking veggies common to an Asian green grocer in Korea or Hong Kong. Need some Thai eggplant or perhaps a dozen quail eggs for Sunday brunch? How about some just arrived Durian, or maybe some banana leaves for making those little packets to steam some rice and fish. Not a problem. One could spend the better part of a morning just looking!



Going to Safeway on a Saturday you almost always encounter someone set up with some type of warming gadget giving out tiny little samples of whatever, to entice you into buying the latest and greatest from General Mills or whomever…this market had about 20 of such “demonstrations” going on throughout the store. I was getting quite an education on “how to do” just about anything relating to Korean cooking, and getting fed at the same time. This happens every Saturday!

While Tex was going back for a larger grocery cart. (didn’t take long to fill that little basket we got at the front door) I found myself in the Kimchee section…WOW…every kind of pickled everything! Seaweed, squid (some with roe, some without), cucumbers, crab, pickled smoked fish, spicy chopped oysters…and on and on! The look in Tex’s eyes when she found me was one of disbelief “What the heck did you find?” She soon was sampling and picking out some goodies for the trip back to the ranch. “There ain’t nothing like this back at home,” she said while sampling some candied squid. (She ended up with a half pound of the stuff)



While I was still making up my mind over some spicy (I wouldn’t eat that much if I were you!!) hot Bok Choy, Tex pulled me over to a gal demo-ing some paper thin sliced marinated brisket, “ You have got to try this!” she whispered.

“Two pounds please” I said between bites of some awesome brisket! We cooked it at home later and found it to be just as tasty as what we enjoyed at the store.

I could go on and on, but time to move this along!!!

The check out ladies nodded with approval while ringing up our newly found culinary delights. “You got rice?” one of them said. “You Betcha” I answered. (Northern Wisconsin slang for…Boy do I!)

We headed for the door with an overly full shopping cart. The sweet potato guy was doing a land office business at his little stall selling hot roasted, and candy-like sweet potatoes to hungry shoppers. We were in for an unexpected and highly educational explanation on the virtues of the Korean variety of sweet potatoes. Skin and all, they ate like a candy bar, while we listened and learned.



Did I mention the fresh roasted chestnuts? After tasting his… I bought a couple pounds so I could try my hand at this seasonal treat.



So much stuff to explore in this store…I’ll come back…on Demo Saturday for sure.

I have this going through my head about chestnuts …so I’ll get in the spirit and share it with you…