Tommorrow's line-up

Tomorrow should be an exciting day. I am cooking from two countries Barbados (Bajan cuisine) and Korea. I plan to make a "Mango Fool" dessert as my Bajan cuisine and a Korean noodle stir-fry. It uses a spicy Korean sauce and combines ingredients found in Korean food but rather than using rice I was inspired by a recipe that I will post up to use buckwheat noodles. I will be going to the Asian market tomorrow and hope to find my ingredients. I hope things work out.

On another note, the country after that is Nepal and I already found a great dish called "Vegetable Thukpa" that requires a spice called lovage. There is a lot of information out there claiming that lovage seeds and ajwain are the same. I am quite confused. After calling a few spice stores in New York City (living near the city is great I feel like I have access to everything) they claimed to either have the lovage root and no seeds or to have ajwain seeds which they passed off as being the same. But I have found information claiming that this is a mistake and that they are infact different. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajwain)

I want this dish to taste authentic. Spices are very important, a signature part of the flavor and origins of the cuisine. I have emailed a Nepalese cook who has posted recipes online using lovage. I hope to get an answer. In the meantime, if anyone has any more info or can help me please let me know!! These spice stores look so interesting. I could spend a day learning about all the spices better yet take a class on them!