Three Meals A Day (Fishing Village) (ep7): Highlights

Well, it isn’t juz me complaining about the mighty high testosterone level in Three (Fishing); when Yoo Hae-jin hears about Chu Sung-hoon‘s arrival, he also commented that the whole place is filled with men — right down to the pets. (i think he forgot about the hens)

1) The sujebi incident

A sujebi is a soup-based meal with hand torn dough flakes and other vege/ meat in the dish. Or at least, that’s how it’s supposed to be.

The morning after Chajumma’s departure, Papa Yoo and Son Ho-joon are discussing what to prepare for lunch to surprise Chajumma upon his return. (surprise? or shock?) Papa Yoo decides unilaterally (since Ho-joonie usually doesn’t have much of an opinion, his responses are limited to “uh-huh”) on sujebi, claiming that it is rather “simple” to prepare. After all, it’s juz dough + soup + vege + somethings… isn’t it.

(discreet cough)…the only thing they forgot (or overlooked) is the flour needed for the dough. Ho-joon is sent to ransack Chajumma’s stash, and he reports that he can only find corn flour (nadah, it’s for thickening stock to gravy), bread flour (nope, it’s for BREAD) and -jeon flour (used for Korean pancakes). There’s no PLAIN flour in sight. The guys deliberate whether to use bread vs -jeon flour, and while they are puzzling out which to use, Ho-joon prepares the vege required for the soup.

Papa Yoo begins to boil the soup stock once the fire is heated up. And you really don’t want him in your kitchen preparing your meals…cos he kinda juz digs everything up from the bowl using his bare hands (i dunno if they are clean…) and then RINSES THE BOWL in the soup stock…(i’m glad i’m not the one eating lunch at Papa Yoo’s home) Turns out Papa Yoo has added too much water, so in goes a ladle (more like a mini basin) and out goes the hot water. Still bland? Throw in some soy sauce, daejeong to flavour up the hot water. (see? cooking is easy)

While the soup is more or less bubbling, the guys finally decide on using -jeon flour to make the dough flakes. Unfortunately, it’s either the flour is the wrong type (yes, wrong), or Papa Yoo doesn’t know how to knead doughs (also very likely), but the result is one sticky mess that juz clings to the mixing bowl. Anyway, digested sujebi or digested -jeon dough will come out of the body looking the same…so Papa Yoo juz plops the sticky dough into the soup. And the dough floats up immediately, looking more like mandoo pieces than sujebi.

Done with cooking “lunch”, the guys engage in a ultra frenzied spring cleaning. Na PD comments it’s the first time the house feels so clean. All these to make sure when Chajumma returns home, he doesn’t pick on them.

2) Sergeant Chajumma is home!

The tag “Sergeant” is given to Chajumma thanks to Papa Yoo. He hilariously compares the cleaning effort similar to the prep before a drill sergeant’s routine barracks inspection, even going so far as to instruct Ho-joon “to squeeze the toothpaste’s tube properly”.

Anyway, he isn’t wrong. The moment Chajumma steps in (with guest Chu Sung-hoon), he does a laser inspection of the surroundings and beelines to his domain (aka the Kitchen), ensuring ALL his beloved cutlery are where they are, and there’s not a speck of grime on them. Satisfied, he turns to whatever is in the pot (the “sujebi”) and tries it out. In appreciation of Papa Yoo’s efforts, Chajumma claims the sujebi is “not bad”…but in the evening, when the crew asks him about it again during the interview, Chajumma sighs, and shakes his head. 😛 Then again, he defends Papa Yoo and commends him for the effort. (aww)

3) Muscular Sung-hoon

Sung-hoon is taken on a tour of the local fishing scene by Papa Yoo after his arrival (and it’s so cute that the villagers greet him as Chu Sa-rang‘s ah pa, rather than Sung-hoon), and he requests to change into a fishermen’s vest. In the process, he reveals those bulging biceps and pec muscles — which draw Papa Yoo’s eyes, and more or less kept them there. When Na PD encourages Papa Yoo to also flex his biceps, Papa Yoo nervously laughs and says he already feels threatened standing next to Sung-hoon. (hee) Btw, Papa Yoo manages to snare a sea cucumber in his nets! Which he promptly steps on by accident. (that poor thing!)

Chajumma clearly doesn’t have the same sentiments as Papa Yoo when it comes to Sung-hoon’s muscles. He sees the bulging biceps as the perfect tool for:
a) grinding garlic
b) beating eggs
c) miscellanous household chores.

Simply put, to Chajumma, Sung-hoon = Artisan professional electric mixer cum Bosch power tool. Since Na PD has invited a household appliance as a guest, Chajumma plans to put it him to good use. Sung-hoon’s first introduction to Chajumma’s kitchen is to grind up the garlic, and he goes at them like they owe him…

3) Chajumma’s love for Ho-joon

…is shown in his sweet and spicy pork. He promised Ho-joon before leaving for his daughter’s birthday party that he will bring back pork and whip up Ho-joon’s favourite dish. And he remembers the promise made. The pork is nearly confiscated by Na PD (due to his no-storebought-ingredient rule), but Chajumma and Sung-hoon (who says he will faint if he doesn’t get enough proteins…ha) over rule Na PD. (or maybe Na PD feels threatened by two burly looking guys glaring at him menacingly)

So Ho-joon gets to have his sweet and spicy stirfried pork. A recipe which Chajumma claims he begged from a stall owner famous for that dish. There is a momentary blackout during the dinner preparation, but Chajumma continues to flip and stirfry the pork in semi-darkness. They turn out seriously mouthwatering in the end. (wat’s new)

4) Ho-joon the Fanboy!

Aww, darling Ho-joon is Sung-hoon’s secret fanboy. While preparing for dinner, the guys bring up Sung-hoon’s wins from his previous MMA matches, and Ho-joon reveals that he keeps track of all of Sung-hoon’s results. He even records Sung-hoon’s matches in his mobile phone, so that he can view and re-view them at leisure. While the guys (including the crew) go ooh and ahh looking at Sung-hoon’s moves from his previous competitions, Sung-hoon himself hangs back in embarrassment (?)

The admiration and presence of a fighter also brings out the keep-fit desire in our guys. Throughout ep7, we see Chajumma and Papa Yoo air-boxing and air-kicking. Super hilarious.

Later in the evening, the guys chill with beer and snacks post-dinner…and the topic turns again to admiring Sung-hoon’s body. And we have a scene of “feel-Sung-hoon-up”, as each of them takes turn to poke, squeeze, touch and gape at the amount of muscle mass Sung-hoon has in his thighs, his arms, his chest…(it’s kinda embarrassing to watch, really!)

5) Abled Sung-hoon

Not only is Sung-hoon abled body, he definitely makes the cut with his culinary abilities. Even Chajumma is suitably impressed with his knife skills (on the chopping board), and as a reward, throws him more stuff to julienne. And it seems like sitting in a centre split to julienne vege is very comfortable for Sung-hoon. (lol) This is in contrast with Chajumma’s demotion of Jung-woo over his murdered onion in the previous week.

Sung-hoon helps in the preparation for the following morning’s breakfast, volunteering to make tamago (Jap egg rolls) and even collected the eggs from the overly protective hens that morning. Though in the process, 2 of the hens escaped — temporarily.

And the bad luck doesn’t end there. The paltry 3 eggs which Sung-hoon collected after an arduous chicken chase, rolled off the wooden platform and landed splat on to the ground. Chajumma tsk-ed at the broken eggs, and asks whose fault it is. Ho-joon and Sung-hoon, who are standing by in attention at the door, unanimously blame the wind. Which is true. That morning had been windy, and poor Ho-joon had struggled to set up the plastic tentage all by himself not daring to wake his sunbaenims up. (but then again, you shouldn’t put eggs on an exposed/ unblocked platform)

For lunch, the guys learn that Sung-hoon restricts himself from eating carbs. As a MMA fighter and a judoka, Sung-hoon’s profession requires him to stay off carbs and bulk up on proteins. Since the other guys have no issue eating rice (Ho-joon especially — i seriously think he will put on weight after Three (Fishing) filiming with his 2-3 bowls of heaping rice every meal), Ho-joon is sent to retrieve the biggest, fattest fish he can find in the FB (Fish Bank). So lunch (prepared by Chajumma and Sung-hoon) is fried rice for the carb-eaters, and fried fish for the protein eater. Coupled with soup leftover from the night before. (but erm, is one fish enough for someone Sung-hoon sized?)

 6) The Expedition

Since Papa Yoo skipped lunch to go fishing, Chajumma and Sung-hoon prepared kimbaps from the leftover fried rice by crunching in dried seaweed and rolling the kimbaps into ball shapes, wrapped individually in aluminium foil. So the 3 guys, with Ho-joon in lead, set off towards the remote fishing ground where Papa Yoo and the village head are. And Ho-joon is so cute in his cartoon bag and Mickey Mouse ear muffs (a gift from Sung-hoon). They decide to take a selca on the way to commemorate the start of the Papa Yoo Lunch Expedition.

When they arrive at the rocky outcrop though, the guys realise that Papa Yoo is perched on this out-of-the-way cliff. Ho-joon volunteers to risk his neck by slowly climbing/ hiking/ trekking there. (and i’m not joking when i said it looks dangerous. a misstep and u prob will land in the sea, provided you don’t hit the rocks first) Thankfully, Ho-joon (and his even more daring VJ) made it safely there and back. Papa Yoo is ultra thankful for the hot kimbaps and the lemon ginger tea.

Let’s hope the little encouragement helps to bring better fishing luck to Papa Yoo. He laments that this is the last stretch of Three (Fishing) filming, and he really, really wants to have a little bit of result on the fishing line.

May the Ocean God favour him with a good catch next week.

There’s only a little segment on Bee/ San-je this ep. San-je’s hobby is to burrow into bags (any bags) and snuggle up inside. Thankfully, he hasn’t pooped inside bags so far.