In October
I began working with three other women to support and instruct those leading
the women’s auxiliary at church in the various English-speaking congregations
in Korea. Except for the one in Seoul,
those congregations are all connected to U.S. military posts and bases and tend
to be rather small. Seoul, though—despite
its mega-metropolis status—has only one English-speaking congregation, and it
is huge. The children’s auxiliary has
over a hundred children attending. Although
the majority of the members are American—affiliated with the military, embassy,
business/industry, universities, or the network of English teachers—over twenty
nations are represented in that congregation. While in Korea, if one does not
attend Korean-speaking services, an English-speaking one is the only other
option.
Because we
wanted to meet the women leaders in each congregation and better understand the
dynamics and any needs, the four of us have been traveling on certain Sundays
to attend services with congregations outside of Seoul. (The four of us all live in Seoul.) Kim actually likes to drive (even in Seoul!)
and her vehicle has a most capable GPS system, so we pile into her van and hit
the highways and byways of Korea. Our
first foray took us to Daegu, where the most distant of the congregations we
oversee is located. We left early one Sunday
morning in the pinky glow of dawn.
Although the GPS indicated the trip would take four hours, we arrived in
three. The return trip took SIX…thanks
to the traffic heading back into Seoul on a Sunday afternoon. Consequently, we have already had the opportunity for
lots and lots of chatting and have certainly begun collecting the associated collateral learning.
For instance, we all
like to read, so we talk books. Kim and
Michelle are in a book club together where recently they discussed Unbroken. Now I will be reading Unbroken. Both of them
expressed interest in books with a Korea connection, so I mentioned two I have read that made an
impression: Adam Johnson’s The Orphan Master’s Son and Kyung-Sook
Shin’s Please Look After Mom.
Kim and Michelle
also run, and—unlike me—Kim, Michelle, and Chu cook. But I am interested in food and nutrition, so
when Kim shared her recipe for her favorite breakfast smoothie, I took mental
notes, actually even purchased the mini-blender with single-serving containers
at the PX, and then tried my own variation of it. It is now my all-time favorite smoothie.
And with
that statement, perhaps the title of this post suddenly begins to exhibit some semblance
of a correlation to all that has spilled forth so far.
So, here
is my recipe:
- ¾ cup of almond milk (I use the unsweetened.)
- 1 small frozen banana
- 1 tablespoon of peanut butter
- 1 tablespoon of cocoa
- 1 hand-full of spinach
- ice as desired (I have found that if both the banana and spinach are frozen, the drink is plenty icy)
- honey as desired (I do not need any additional sweetner—the banana is enough—but I am not a particularly “sweet” person. I like my chocolate dark, dark, DARK.)
And this
smoothie is dark, very DARK. It looks like
swamp mud, the absolute essence of sludge!
Yet it
tastes so incredibly good! I will come
home from school craving it.
Kim
actually uses chocolate protein powder, but I have never used protein powder, purchased protein powder, and have yet to do either. However,
my smoothie recipe does not work for me as a breakfast all by itself (I get
hungry too soon), and that might be because I don’t use protein powder, just a
tablespoon of Hershey’s Dark Cocoa powder.
My version works exceedingly well as dessert!
