Happy Birthday Loola!

Today is Loola's 28th birthday, so last night I made a trip to the foreign market to buy some baking supplies!  I knew her favorite type of cake was red velvet, so I decided to make red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting!  YUMM!!!

During tea time (after our first class of the day), 

I arranged the cupcakes on the table and lit the candles for a little birthday party...

Loola was very touched and made her birthday wish...

...and the 6 of us (Hana, behind the camera) had a little party between classes!
** These are the people I drink tea with everyday after 1st period.

Loola sent me this message:
Lovely Chelsey...

I was really touched today because of  your lovely event!!
Actually in Korea, Teachers don't have a birthday party in school.
Sometimes my students prepared the surprised party, not a teacher.
Today I had a  very special birthday party which my co teacher prepared.^^
I'll never forget~
Thank you so much~

As a words of affirmation lover, this made my whole day and made my messy kitchen totally worth the hassle of cleaning! 

Happy birthday Loola friend!

Cooking up a 6th grade storm!

One of the 6th grade classes spent the first 2 hours of the morning cooking recipes from their school textbook!  Each student group decided, before hand, what they would make, and brought all of the ingredients needed... Then, when the bell rang, they went at it!  

Min Ju's group made pizza on pieces of white bread.  

She was in charge of spreading the sauce and putting the toppings on!

This is Hana, their teacher, displaying their first attempt at cooking the pizza in the pan!  Check out the completely BURNT bread!

2nd time around, however, was PERFECT!

MinGee's group was in charge of making some sort of egg, rice, carrot, kimchi sandwich!

The different parts of it looked appetizing, 

but when it was mixed all together, it looked like a big mess of nastiness!

This group was in charge of making duk-boki, a Korean favorite! 

It's basically rice and fish cakes mixed in a red sauce.

 

 Here are the rice cakes cooking! The first time I tried one of these, I almost gagged... now I'm a HUGE fan!  They're the consistency of cooled down mozzarella sticks.

30 minutes later, and WALA!  It was ready to devour!

 

 Song Min's group made these darling mini hamburgers!
 I'm a sucker for food presentation and little colored umbrellas, so this was my favorite!

 They were very proud of their little hamburger creations!

On cooking days, I'm always offered food, either by their hands, or on chopsticks, which are shoved right next to my mouth!  Luckily, they were all wearing gloves today, which made it a little more sanitary than usual!  

 But you can't be so sure... because you never know which of the crazies are licking the cooking utensils when they think no one is looking!

Bon appetite!