Trouble. The Good Glutinous Kind. Or Dduk.

Well, now.  THAT was fun.  Sorta.  Ok, not really.

But enough is enough and the time arrived to do what I said I'd do if I didn't start full-time somewhere by now.  You'll find me heading towards Madison Square Garden in the mornings these days.  If I take a breather in the middle of the workday, you may see me at the Borders above Penn Station stone-faced wondering why the heck there aren't ever any empty seats in New York bookstores. But who's complaining?  Not I.  Because I am super temp.  HEAR ME ROAR.

At the end of each day, being less than two blocks from the 32nd Street known as the Koreatown of Manhattan (it's really more like a pitiful two-block strip between Broadway and Madison), I can't help but make a detour through the tiny H-Mart.  Tonight, I splurged on some dduk.  This particular one is called in'-juhl-mee.

I used to have this stuff at Sunday church fellowships and special occasions growing up all the time.  Now I spend 0.00000001% of my time with Koreans so I rarely get my hands on these treats.  Made with rice flour, dduk's the sticky mochi stuff that the Japanese have popularized, but keep in mind that dduk is substantially less sweet than what you're probably used to biting into after your sushi.  Newbies to this treat usually have difficulty comprehending the lure of this chewy glutinous dessert.  It's rather bland to the unsuspecting American tongue, flavored by rolling in nutty bean powders or crushed sesame seeds and sometimes filled with small doses of sweet red bean filling and/or honey.

You want to enjoy these when they're still fresh - warm if you're super lucky.  The next day, they'll be less soft and by the next, even less so.  In our house, uhmmah would lightly pan fry day old in-juhl-mee dduk until the insides warmed enough to start oozing out a little and the powder on the outside would form a thin delicate golden crust.  Then we'd run those glorious hot dduk pieces through a smear of honey on our plates for an amazing winter morning or night treat.

In-juhl-mee perched between my chopsticks, tucked under a fuzzy blanket, remote by my side, I am feeling peaceful tonight.  And grateful...that there's an H-Mart I can visit every day as long as there are projects for me; that I can report to work in jeans; that sneakers are ok, too; that I can have my iPod plugged into both ears all day if I so wish; that tomorrow, I get to work from home (I know!).  If it weren't so biting cold tonight, I'd step outside and count my lucky stars.