How to Candy Ginger

I've never been a fan of candied or crystallized ginger.  Tastes too gingery.  But I had some recently finely chopped and folded into a rich, dark chocolate bon bon, and the combination converted my ginger-hardened heart.  I became inspired to candy some ginger when I set out to make my own Pepero for Pepero Day.  But then I thought to myself, "Do I really want to be the kind of person who sits at home candying ginger?"  I decided not to candy any friggin' ginger.

Then I went to Bangsan Market to pick up some sprinkles for the Pepero and saw swarms of young teenage girls doing the same.  My eyes narrowed.  Candying of ginger BACK ON.

Homemade Pepero/Pocky Sticks

November 11th is Pepero Day.  It's pretty similar to Valentine's Day in that children and couples exchange gifts of this chocolate-dipped stick.  It gets pretty out of control.  More pepero are sold in the two weeks leading up to this holiday than all the other weeks of the year combined.  There's even a song.

There are several layers of double-entendres to add cheesiness to this day of marketing ploys.  Because Pepero resembles sticks, 11/11 is meant to commemorate the Pepero silhouette.  Pepero is also supposed to serve as inspiration - to be long and thin like a Pepero stick.  How disturbing.  Also, Pepero Day is meant for couples so if 11 represents a person, 11/11 represents a couple.  How gay.   This past Pepero Day was 11/11/11, so it was THREESOME ULTIMATE PEPERO DAY!

~11/11/11~

Apparently there was a lot of hype surrounding this "once in a millenium" (technically a century) Pepero Day.  But really the biggest piece of news was what Hyori had to say about this holiday.  (To be read in a heavily sarcastic tone.)

To honor this day of being skinny by eating lots of chocolate, I decided to make my own Pepero.  It's basically a crunchy breadstick covered in chocolate.  To make the "crunchy breadstick", I found a recipe for grissini, Italian breadsticks, but modified it by substituting flour for semolina and doing away with the sesame seeds.