Dog Days of Summer

We just passed chobok, the first of the three hottest days-boknal- of the year by the lunar calendar. On Korea's hot summer days traditionally people eat things like samgyetang (a soup made by boiling a young hen stuffed with garlic, ginseng, dates, and rice) and boshintang (dog stew--yes, it's for real; calling it 'boshintang' don't hide what it is, people). I won't comment much on the latter, except to say that people either really don't know or lie when they say there are special dogs raised for that, like chickens or pigs are raised for eating. A friend of mine had her husky stolen out of her yard and she has a suspicion as to why.  A relatively recent news report revealed that people putting dogs up for adoption with a 'hospital' or 'shelter' (one sicko actually put an ad in the paper saying that he was offering to take dogs that people could no longer care for themselves and find them new homes) are unaware that some of these places are selling the dogs to dog 'farms' or dog brokers who then sell the dogs to boshintang restaurants. 
Link to the report:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGU1t_V_VrI

Going past that one and onto a less controversial topic... for a good video tutorial on making samgyetang, you can go to this video (link to the online recipe also at that site):
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNHthPsujZA
On chobok, we saw that at local chicken places the lines were literally around the block.  Campus eateries, as well, served samgyetang, or some form of chicken soup, for lunch and dinner.  Jack likes to eat at the cafeteria across from where we live because it's good and cheap--literally five of us ate for a little over 12 bucks.  On chobok, he had the brilliant idea that we could eat there and not have to wait in line forever. That day, they served chicken soup, and it was good.

Jack's sister Eunsil enjoys the wholesome cafeteria grub.

Dahin and her cousin rebel and eat curry rice--bad girls, bad!  : - )

Ronan has been really ill the past two days (although today he is better).  So, I boiled a whole chicken in a pot full of water with whole garlic cloves.  Once it boiled for an hour, I drained the broth and put it back in the pot and deboned the chicken. I returned the chicken minus the bones to the pot full of broth and added some fresh garlic cloves along with quarted new potatoes and boiled it for 30 more minutes.  After the initial cooking, I refrigerated the soup in the pot.  Overnight, the fat from the soup rose to the top and hardened, making it really easy to spoon it out. I don't add salt in the large pot that is put in the fridge after eating and then re-heated because adding salt makes the food spoil sooner than it should.  I just add salt to individual bowls as we eat.  We've been eating chicken soup and rice for two days now and I really think it's helped poor Ronan feel better.  Last night, he didn't have to sleep with his 'ice dolly' (an ice pack wrapped in a towel he snuggled with the first night his fever spiked).  Today he's talking, making abundant messes with paper and glue, and not letting mommy work on anything (something I could do while he napped yesterday),  so I am guessing he is almost back to normal, which is a very good thing.