A few of my coworkers recently returned from business travel in Michigan. One evening the guys visited a restaurant where the waitstaff consisted entirely of women who were particularly provocative in their attire. One such lady chatted up my coworkers.

Attractive Waitress: So what do you guys do?
Andy: We’re engineers.
Waitress: So… you drive trains?
Sander: Yup.
Andy: Yup. Trains.
Sander: We’re parked outside.
Andy: All aboard!
Sander: Woo woo!

I got a good chuckle at this. To be fair, this was simply a misinterpretation of the data presented. Still, I’m tempted to buy Andy and Sander a pair of striped railroad engineer digs for Christmas.

Normally, I book my company travel through our travel agent at my company. It’s massively convenient. For this trip however, because of the limited advanced notice, one of my coworkers was kind enough to set my flight up for me via travelocity.

My return flight was scheduled for 8pm and I found out that there was an earlier 10am flight available. I called up travelocity to see if I could switch the flight and was informed that I would be charged $1,550. $150 for the change fee and $1400 as the change in the two ticket expenses. $1550? Whoa there, Travelocity. That seems a bit steep. I figured maybe $300 bucks or so. But $1,550? Geeze.

So I called Korean air and was able to change my flight for no charge. Free. Zero bucks. Zippo Dollars. Ixnay on the argeChay.

What the heck Travelocity?!?

One of my coworkers takes a break, lying on a nearby pagoda.

Of all the foods I’ve tried, it is Korean cuisine that I can’t yet appreciate.

I am currently working on the South East end of the Korean peninsula about a four hour drive from Seoul. A typical lunch for the workers here consists of a pile of white sticky rice, various vegetables covered in brine and hot chili peppers, kimchi, a meat and a soup. It’s that brine-esque, pickled vegetable stuff that I haven’t yet learned to love. and it is EVERYWHERE. 50% of most meal options are sprinkled with hot&spicy ocean flavor spices.

Yesterday, the Koreans that I’m working with requested a pizza party. So we bought them Pizzas from their favorite locale: Dominoes.

Korean Dominoes should be classified as local cuisine. Two of the pizzas had mayonaise on them, another had shrimp and unidentified yellow cubes. Squash? I’m not sure. You’d think I would be all over that mayo pizza, but I couldn’t move myself to try it.

I will be here until the 28th.

For those of you who are curious:

1. Gangnam style is referenced daily here
2. I’ve heard Gangnam style twice on the radio
3. I have danced the Gangnam style dance twice (unrelated to the radio)
4. I have seen two South Koreans dance the gangnam style dance

I got a call at midnight last night instructing me to get on the earliest flight to South Korea.

So here i am at JFK. Off I go!

Updates pending

This week I’m off to Chattanooga, TN and Birmingham, AL! I’m somewhat exicited about this trip because these are two locations that I haven’t yet had the pleasure of visiting. I’m hoping to sneak in at least a few hours of tourism in each city, though this will depend greatly on how aggressive my schedule ends up being.

If you have been to either of these cities and can make some recommendations on things I should see or do, please send ‘em my way!

On my return flight from Buffalo this week I sat next to a food scientist. This seat assignment rates right up there with the time I sat next to the Mayonnaise Salesman and let’s not forget the Sargento Cheese guy. This woman had an undergraduate degree in Chemistry and a master’s degree in Food Science. At her current job she specializes in dough.

Dough. Like… Pizza dough? How convenient!

Obviously, I asked her for comments on pizza making. The first recommendation she made to me was that I transition to 00 Flour (referred to in the industry as “Double Oh Flour”). This is a dough that is ground extra thin, retains more water, and improves the silky smoothness of the dough pre-baking. But with new water retention levels, how do I know how much flour to add? My new food scientist friend reports that I should be able to read a newspaper through the dough when it’s stretched thin – Daaaang! That is Glutenrific!

I got this food scientist’s business card and may introduce her to MikeDiDonato.com. I think it’s safe to say that we would welcome the knowledge base of a food scientists amongst our ranks.

As a final note, it’s probably worthwhile to pause to reflect on food industry business cards. Kristin the food scientist was telling me that she knows a butter developer. Butter Developer? Best title ever.