Peculiar Nest Japchae

Japchae is a traditional Korean dish originating from the 17th century royal palatial cuisine. Originally prepared with just vegetables and mushrooms, in the 20 century the sweet potato starch noodles have become an integral part of the recipe.

Recipes evolve. The original dish is said to have used radish, cucumber and mushrooms. I don’t know anyone who prepares the dish with radish any more. Instead, the glassy cellophane noodles are tossed in slightly sweet sesame soy sauce with individually stir fried carrots, blanched spinach, julienned pan fried eggs, mushrooms and meat. Living here in south Texas, I may not be able to get all the ingredients cookbooks and recipes call for. My trick is to use whatever ingredients I can substitute by by color. For instance, when Isaac turned vegan, I started to use yellow summer squash instead of julienned egg. When I don’t have any spinach on hand, I throw in some kale. Instinctively I follow the five color rule. Black, red, green, white and yellow in equal portions will create a visual harmony Koreans are accustomed with. If this color based philosophy interests you, please look up Obangsek.

I have cooked this dish hundreds of times because it is an integral part of birthdays, holidays and special occasions in a Korean home. Over the years, I have come up with my own way of preparing this complicated dish rather quickly.

1 bag of sweet potato starch noodles, dangmyun, soaked in water for 2 hours

1 carrot julienned

1 yellow squash halved and sliced in a bias

1 red bell pepper julienned

1 small onion sliced vertically size of the other vegetables julienned

1 cup baby spinach

1 cup thinly cut mushrooms, shiitake, oyster, it does not matter

0.5 cup soy sauce

0.25 cup sugar

1 Tbs sesame oil

1 tsp minced garlic

1. Place all vegetables in a large pan with a tight fitting lid. Add a splash of water and place on medium heat. When it starts to sizzle, turn the heat to low for additional three minutes. Obviously each range, each vessel is different. Don’t let it burn. The onion should be slightly softened. Remove from heat and place in a large mixing bowl.

2. In the same large pan where you cooked the vegetables, add 1 cup soy sauce, 0.25 cup sugar, sesame oil and garlic. When it comes to a boil on a medium high heat, reduce the heat to midium low and add the soaked noodles and start coating and mixing the noodles in the sauce. The noodles will become glassy as they cook.

3. When the noodles are completely cooked, usually 5 minutes, transfer the hot noodle to the vegetable mixture. Throw in 1 cup of baby spinach as well Mix well. I recommend mixing using your hand wearing a disposable cooking glove. The noodles will be very hot, and kind of sticky and clumping together, but don’t worry. Once the vegetables are incorporated, it will be fine. If you are noticing your noodles are clumpier than what you thought, you can add another table spoon of sesame oil.

4. Feel free to switch out and substitute vegetables.

Mango Jicama Salad

I make this salad when I can find good quality jicama and the mangos become plenty at the market.

1 jicama julienned

1 mango julienned

1 large lime or two small ones juiced

0.5 jalapeno seeded diced small

1Tbs red onion finely chopped

2 Tbs cilantro chopped

1 tsp salt

Toss together. Add a little sugar or agave syrup to balance the salt and acidity because sometimes the jicamas and mangos are naturally sweet. The sizes vary, too. Adding a tiny bit of sugar to taste at the end helps to round out the flavors.

Peculiar Nest Vegan Friendly Peanut Butter Bars

Peculiar Nest hosts Tiffany Kersten’s Nature Ninja Birding Tours guests during the south Texas birding season. When birding retreat guests stay, I whip up dishes loosely based on random recipes I find online. Because of my 30 plus years of house keeping, I can spot a good recipe when I see one. This one was lifted from twopeasandtheirpod.com but in order to make it fit the dietary needs of various guests, I eliminated butter, substituted flax seed slurry for an egg and halved the sugar. Even then, it turned out a bit too sweet for my taste. Nevertheless very tasty, and many guests asked for the recipe. I decided to post it here before I forget where the original recipe came from. I recommend you use a mixer because creaming peanut butter and sugar together requires lots of arm muscle.

1.5 cups old fashioned oats

0.5 cup all purpose flour

0.5 tsp basking soda

0.25 tsp salt

0.5 tsp cinnamon

1 cup peanut butter

0.5 cup sugar

1 Tbs ground flax seed mixed with 2 Tbs water

1tsp vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Mix all dry ingredients.

3. In a separate bowl, mix peanut butter, sugar, egg and vanilla extract and cream.

4. Combine and stir until mixed.

5. Press onto parchment lined cookie sheet and shape.

6. Bake 15 minutes, let cool and cut into bars.

How Isaac and I became Airbnb hosts...

Thirty plus years of treating my home making with a certain level of seriousness and professionalism has led me to run an Airbnb from our empty Peculiar Nest in McAllen, Texas. In a way, it was a natural progression of my life to become an Airbnb host, although it was never foreseen or planned.

Let me tell you how Isaac and I first became Airbnb hosts. On our property in south Texas, there was an old metal siding encased car port the previous owner personally built with her own two hands. We had no real use for it, so we decided to turn it into something else. When our child number one, Yooni, was a little girl, Isaac promised to build her a playhouse. He got as far as digging a litte plot to pour concrete foundation. And the project ended there. I always felt badly about father not fulfilling his promise to his girl. This empty carport can be transformed into a grown up playhouse for Yooni! Tiny house living was all the rage in 2019 after all! We also wanted a guest house so Isaac’s father could visit us more freely and more often. It gives me so much joy to preserve, reuse and repurpose whenever possible. This cabin was one of those projects. Throughout the first six months of the pandemic, Isaac and I poured ourselves into building this cabin. The original metal framing and metal siding were all preserved. Materials leftover from previous projects became the floor, bathroom walls, lighting, etc. The resulting product was a very functional and cute one bedroom one bath lakeside cabin.

Obviously, the pandemic prevented people from our lives from visiting us at all. The cabin sat empty. We toyed with the idea of listing it on Airbnb, but there was a lot of psychological resistance from Isaac. It must have been a masculine territorial thing. We started offering the cabin to our friends, to come and stay or even to quarantine. No one took the offer.

Then I got a call from Philip, our child number 2 from Brooklyn. His friend Frasier was making a documentary movie about monarch butterflies, and he was going to be in the Rio Grande Valley. Philip wanted us to host Frasier. We gleefully accepted, appreciating a chance for social contact with someone during those solitary months. Frasier and his camera man arrived, and they were our first “guests”. The movie “Where the butterflies go” was shot partly at Peculiar Nest, and you can watch it in its entirety on |Waterbear Network. Sometimes Patagonia will host a screening in cities near you.

My confidence was boosted after Philip’s friends visit. Frasier was a seasoned Airbnb traveler and a host himself. He gave me some good feedback to install string lights outdoor and to replace the two twin beds with something larger. Even with a very positive experience with Frasier and his camera man, there was a lot of inertia and it was difficult for Isaac and myself to get started with hosting.

Then came our child number three, Nicolas, home for the Christmas holidays. We told him about our plans, and in thirty minutes he accomplished what we were dillydallying for months. Our cabin was listed on Airbnb! At that time, Airbnb was kind of encouraging hosts to name their listing. The cabin was christened “Ethereal”.

The rest is history. We were so fortunate to start hosting during the golden days of Airbnb. People were avoiding hotels, many were travelling and working remotely, and there was still the excitement associated with novelty of staying at a stranger’s house. We encountered hundreds of people the first year who came from near and far to stay at our cabin solely based on some photos we uploaded onto the Airbnb site. Daniel, our child number four, was customer relations, setting door codes, greeting and occasionally changing sheets. It was truly a family endeavor.

Eventually other bedrooms were turned into guest rooms one by one to meet the growing demand. In 2022, Tiffany Kersten of 2021 Big Year birding fame started to host her south Texas Nature Ninja Birding retreats at our Peculiar Nest. Presently Nicolas is a superhost who boasts over 1000 five star reviews on Airbnb site.

Leave a comment if you want to hear more about our hosting journey!

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How to Make the Best Use of Your Single Day Birding in the Rio Grande Valley

Here's a 24-hour birding itinerary for South Texas to maximize species based on eBird information:

Day 1:

Morning:

• Start early in the morning by heading to the Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park, which is known for its incredible diversity of bird species. Look out for species such as the Green Jay, Plain Chachalaca, and Golden-fronted Woodpecker.

• After a few hours of birding, head to the Edinburg Scenic Wetlands, which is home to several species of waterfowl, herons, and egrets. Keep an eye out for the Black-bellied Whistling Duck, Fulvous Whistling Duck, and the Green Heron.

Afternoon:

• Next, head to the Estero Llano Grande State Park, which has a variety of birding habitats such as thorn forest, wetlands, and ponds. You might spot the Altamira Oriole, White-tailed Kite, and the Olive Sparrow.

• For lunch, stop by the Weslaco City Park and grab a bite to eat while enjoying the scenic views. Look out for the Red-billed Pigeon and the Groove-billed Ani.

Evening:

• End your day by visiting the Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge, which is known for its rare and endangered species such as the Hook-billed Kite, Aplomado Falcon, and the Altamira Oriole.

• Finish your day with dinner at one of the many delicious restaurants in McAllen or Edinburg.

With this itinerary, you'll be able to maximize your birding experience in South Texas and potentially spot a variety of bird species. Happy birding!

Introducing, Gorgeous!

Gorgeous is a 5 bedroom 5.5 bath fully furnished stylish vacation rental we just added to our offering. This used to be our home, our previous nest before moving to the lake location.

Each of the five bedrooms has its own en suite bathroom, which makes it an excellent choice for friend groups and families.

You can get more information here.

https://abnb.me/tDbLGH3Tevb

Peacock Update

The breeding season ended with the summer's end. The peacocks lost all their long feathers, and stopped being so aggressive and territorial with one another. With the colder months approaching, I noticed their feathers fluffing up to keep themselves warm. Also, their new feathers are growing back, more vibrant in color and sheen than ever before.

Guests who are serious birders don't seem to be very interested in the pea fowl, but the rest of the people are facinated. I myself enjoy observing their behavior very much. I don't know about other places, but our birds love papaya leaves, and recently discovered Isaac's lettuce patch. They will only eat what is growing, and will not take cut up veggies or fruits. Curious!

It's been a year…

It's been a year since we listed on Airbnb our first unit, a humble cabin we spent the first year of the pandemic building ourselves. Almost immediately we knew that we offered something that people have been longing for. Something that they were not even aware that they missed and longed for in their lives, which is an intimate connection with nature. Our unique setting allows guests to feel transported to a faraway place while being right in the middle of a city. I sure felt enchanted when we first discovered this magical place.

One cabin led to another room conversion, to another and another as we dealt with the increasing demand. We worked hard, learned a lot, and met so many wonderful people along the way. We have served over 300 guests the first year. Overwhelming number of them have left long, loving reviews on the Airbnb site. We are truly grateful.

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My favorite review is one by Patricia who stayed in Sublime, one of our private room suites.

“all those reviews are accurate and not exaggerated”

“The grounds are just the best- on little Lake Conception”

“Peculiar Nest is a far cry from what is more usual for AirBnB”

Patricia, Houston TX

“We plan to go back again and again”

If you are curious about other review as well, you can find them here.

Sharing our peculiar but wonderful nest with the world

Since moving to the southern most tip of Texas, we have come to realize what an ecological gem this place is. We built a new “nest”, so to speak, right on the banks of a small lake/resaca which used to be part of the Rio Grande River. Now the lovingly restored mid-century ranch style has home accepts guests from all over the world to come share our joy.

Farmers Market in McAllen, Tx

Our mission was to checkout farmers markets in our area. Even though we live in an agricultural area, most of the farming is done conventionally. Only a handful of farmers are growing organically or sustainably. Those farmers bring their fare to Fireman's Park every Saturday to the Grow'n Growers Market for those of us who hunger for that rare variety of caffots or freshly picked herbs. Many of the booths are run by hobby farmers (those who farm less than ten acres) and backyard gardeners, which make the market's offering that much more interesting. 

We started at the Fireman's Park, but ended up stopping by the other farmers market in front of the McAllen Public Library to say hi to our friend, Paul Bowers. He makes a delicious Prickly Pear Jelly. I bought a few as gifts for friends who live in California and New York. The jelly is a lovely amethyst color when you spread it over toast. I would like to see the farmers markets in the Rio Grande Valley grow to include more artisan crafts and items like Paul Bowers' preserves. 

We picked up some beautiful rainbow carrots and cherry tomatoes. The rainbow carrots were Eunice's favorite and were sold to us by a boy Daniel's age. It's almost a shame to use these carrots in a dish because they are so delicious. 

Making our Peculiar Nest

I have called many places my home: Seoul, San Francisco's East Bay, South Texas, Los Angeles, and Tokyo. My two oldest children have gone to New York for college. Who knows where my younger two sons will end up? Somewhere exciting to visit, I hope. 

I find myself returning to cities that I had bid farewell to. We moved to South Texas when our family was only four people big. We were a young family back then. We tried to fill our lives with what we believed families should have. A job. A house. Piano, Kumon, and tennis for the kids after school. Any new parent will tell you that every moment with their child is simultaneously a teaching and a learning moment. After moving back to California in the 00's, and then a stint in Korea, here we are in the Rio Grande Valley once more. 

This time, though, we have brought two different children to the R.G.V.. The older two have gone to college and started on their own paths to adulthood (but Eunice, the oldest, will be staying with us for a while!). Some parts of motherhood are easier now. Some parts will always be challenging. Luckily, my younger children have two more examples of how people negotiate their life. Parenting is about guiding young people into making good decisions and teaching them the richness of life. 

 I started this blog to connect with my family since we are often not all in the same place. I'll share my recipes, travels, and musings with help from my children and husband. It's also a great excuse to explore the nooks and crannies of this part of the world. Birds make their home with whatever they can find in their area. In this season of our lives, we have made our nest in South Texas.