The Great Chuseok Party

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In another room, my teenage girls were drawn in by the weepy Korean dramas being shown on video, while eating Korean dates and rice cake snacks. Little Brother learned how to spin a Korean top and had fun playing a Korean dice game called yutnori.

What we all loved most, though, was making songpyeon. Songpyeon are half-moon shaped rice dumplings filled with sesame or sweet bean, sort of like a cross between mezzelune and mochi, or dumplings and yuanxiao. Sweet. Made with rice flour and stuffed, the dumplings are incredibly delicate to fold. Once cooked, they are deliciously bouncy, and the different colorings in the dough make for a festive treat. Guided by a humorous YouTube video, we made several songpyeon to take home and cook, but unfortunately we were not gentle enough to get them home in one piece. Little Brother insisted that we had to make more.

The Nam Center for Korean Studies' second annual Great Chuseok Party runs from 1:30-4 p.m. on Saturday, September 29.   

[Originally published in September, 2012.]