Janey Lee

I have watched Koreans eating live octopus on TV a couple of times. A couple of months ago, we watch Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations visit a place in Flushing Queens where the prepare live octopus several ways. We knew we had to try it!

We went with friends Julie and Dave (and the kids) and made the trek out to Sik Gaek (16129 Crocheron Ave, Flushing, NY 11358, (718) 321-7770). When you walk into this place its like you are suddenly IN Korea. The tables are close together and picnic table style. The decorations, the waitstaff and the really loud Korean pop music are all fun and festive.

When you first sit down at your table, they bring you fried eggs and steamed eggs and dduk bok ki. Not your typical ban chan. We waited around for service until we were informed that there is actually a button on the table where you can buzz for your waiter!

We ordered live octopus two ways. The first plate of live octopus was just simply cut into small pieces and put on a plate with slices of hot pepper and garlic. It came with hot pepper and sesame oil dipping sauce. Its really hard to grab with your chopsticks, but using your fingers is somewhat out of the question because the octopus will literally crawl up your hand. It tastes like fresh raw seafood. It is not smelly, but it is slimy. The tentacles grab the roof of your mouth and tongue. Its chewy, so you have to really chew hard to get it to stop moving and be able to swallow it. Its more of a fun dish to eat than being really tasty. It really isn’t as gross as it sounds. It costs $19.00.

Next, we ordered san nakji jungol. They bring a large pot to your table and put it on a burner. Inside, there are clams, mussels, calamari rings, noodles, vegetables, a conch and on top, there is a severed whole lobster. And it is still moving. And then the waiter comes back and puts two whole live octopi on top. He turns up the flame and the whole thing cooks your food alive. The octopus and lobster twitch and squirm until they are done. The waiter comes back, cuts it all up into bit size pieces with scissors and you enjoy a hearty seafood stew that is nice and spicy. The jongol is a lot of food, you can probably feed 6 people with it. It costs $80.

Matilda thought the restaurant was pretty fun. Its not very kid friendly. The food is all really spicy. But they DO have high chairs. We had to leave eventually because it was so loud, it gave her a headache.

Thanks to Dave for making the awesome video!

We just launched a new website this week. If you are looking for a contractor in New York city check out Kingdon Knowles. Kingdon built our custom office space and is a lovely person to work with. He specializes in kitchens and baths in Manhattan and Riverdale.

We got a double stroller at a church sale. Sigh.At least it was cheap!

The best thing about having a house in gardening. I have been dreaming about having my own little patch to call my own.

In April, I pulled up the grass on a small section of our front lawn and have been building a perennial garden. Perennial gardens take a long time to come along, and often look bare at the beginning.  This is my first bit of documentation on what I hope will be a lush flower bed.

An uninsured friend asked me what it costs to pay for the cost of having a child. Well I recently got my medical bills, so here it is:

• Natural birth with no anesthesia or other medication. One night in the hospital in a shared room. $10,427.00
• Care of newborn baby for under 48 hours. Hearing test, blood tests. $2505.00
• Obstetrician (includes prenatal visits) appx $6,500
• Misc blood tests

We have health insurance through the Freelancers Union. We are “fortunate” to be able to pay $932 a month for the 4 of us.  Our coverage consists of a PPO plan where we can see specialists without a referral. We pay a $30 copay for a primary care doctor, and $50 for a specialist, which is high, but we can deal with it.

The tricky part is coverage for hospitalization. Most people don’t have to worry about hospitalization, but unless you make other arrangements for a non-traditional birth, a woman and child will be hospitalized for birth. Our insurance covers 80% of the cost of hospitalization after a deductible of $2000.

So that means, that our final out of pocket cost to have a baby in the hospital was $3, 289! I can’t help but to feel that the money would have been better spent on a homebirth.

My in-laws came for a visit today. They are staying for one month. I finished the guest room 30 minutes before they arrived.

We finally finished construction on our new office space and moved our computers in. Its 2AM and we are giddy with joy.

Pablo finally has two monitors (one is reserved for youtube) and I can simultaneously use my desktop and laptop. Woo!

Is everyone else drowning in coupons? I have coupons for the Container Store, Bed Bath and Beyond, Macys, Barnes and Noble, Staples, Old Navy, Crate and Barrel and Potterybarn. Anyone want them? The only place I seem to shop these days is IKEA and Home Depot. Any they don’t seem to send coupons.

I feel like just about every one of our friends has some connection to our beloved apartment on Riverside Drive. In my mind, it is the set of my very own version of the Being Boring video. The apartment was host to fun champagne parties or lazy lounging around nights.

In the end, it turned into a bit of a nightmare for us, which is how we ended up in the suburbs.

The apartment has been nicely repaired (no more danger of the floor or ceiling falling in) and is now on the market for sale. We are taking advantage of our insider’s discount and would like to assign our contract. Here is the listing. Please pass it along.

Wow, our doula, who is now training to become a midwife posted a really interesting blog post on circumcision.

Circumcision as we understand it today originated when God commanded that Hebrews were the chosen people and that circumcision was to be performed on male babies as part of agreeing to such a covenant. Today, circumcision involves removing the vast majority of the prepuce (foreskin) of the penis, but back then, they removed only the tip of the foreskin, just “taking a little off the top,” so to speak. This procedure was called the “Mosaic” circumcision, and it didn’t require retracting the foreskin from the glans (head) of the penis. (It’s called “Mosaic” because Moses’ wife circumcised her husband in just such a way, ’cause he lived with the Egyptians and they didn’t do circumcision.)

But the Greeks, you see, who revered the male figure and wouldn’t have dreamed of “mutilating” the penis, did a lot of socializing and making public policy in bath houses, naked. Any Jewish man who wanted to assimilate into this scene needed to fit in somehow, and many circumcised men would attach weights to their now-shortened foreskins, to stretch them out to a passable length. The Rabbis got wind of this and it didn’t fly. They decreed that now Jewish baby boys needed to have all the foreskin removed, and the “Rabbinic” circumcision is how we circumcise boys to this day, no matter what their heritage.

We didn’t circumcise Mateo because its not a part of Pablo’s culture, and I am dead against it unless you are Jewish. Read Jocelyn’s full post here. It has the details on how they actually perform circumcision. You might want to avoid reading it if you are squeamish, or prefer to be in denial because your son has had one. However, if you are considering having it done to your son, PLEASE READ IT!