December 5 2022

Downhill

Place

Heart and Seoul

After cooking rice, most people scrape the charred, sticky residue off the bottom of the pot and never think about it again. Why would you? In South Korea, however, it is typical to pour hot water into the pot and bring it back to the boil, infusing the water with the flavor of scorched rice. Then you drink it. This delicacy is called sungnyung and, to an untutored palate (mine), can taste a bit like imbibing dishwater. Yet while dining with a group of high-powered Hyundai execs in Seoul recently, we all ended our meal by dutifully slurping down our reheated rice leavings. “Korea was terribly poor until recently,” one of my companions told me. “Sungnyung was a way of getting the most out of your rice bowl.

Birdie Hall

Married in Meteora

I first visited the Greek monastery of Agios Stefanos on the rocks of Meteora in the early spring of this year, one week after my baptism into the Orthodox Church. Greece was heavy with Great Lent fasts and preparations for Christ’s resurrection — Easter. I had just escaped the clutches of an extremely sweet but annoying young tour guide with whom my very Greek now-father-in-law had set my fiancé and me up for a tour of the ancient churches. I wanted nothing to do with this young man in a tour van who sounded like he was reciting words from a tape recorder. Later I found out he was, and had taught himself English by doing so (which is pretty endearing in hindsight).