Happy Friday: Kimchi Edition

I didn’t have a computer to use for the past week and a half because I left my laptop’s charger in New Jersey! At first I wasn’t too happy about it and I would go over to my parents’ house to charge my computer every other day. But eventually I gave in and realized it was a nice opportunity to unplug and enjoy evenings at home free from the time suck of articles on the web and binge watching terrible reality TV.

It seems like kimchi has taken over the world… or at least the world wide web. I grew up eating kimchi as part of my family’s Korean dinner table. Now I try and find any way I can to add kimchi to a dish.

• To start, let’s look at a quick overview on cooking with kimchi.
• Kimchi getting a bit old? Throw it in a pot with pork belly and make some some kimchi stew.
• What’s your comfort food? For many Koreans, especially in my mom’s generation, it’s budae jigae, or “army base stew”. It’s basically an amalgamation of the Korean ingredients you see in stew like kimchi, tofu and rice cakes with a random assortment of Western food items like Spam, hot dogs, cheese, and baked beans- items originally sourced from US Forces Korea when food was scarce.
• In the last few years I was in Korea, Tex Mex became the trendy cuisine in Korea. I remember the first time I tried kimchi carnitas fries– I felt really skeptical about it initially but after the first delicious bite I knew it was a tasty mix. I can’t wait to try this recipe for kimchi fries!
• I love this creative take on kimchi jeon. Jeon is a type of savory pancake (like a latke chock full of vegetables and/or meat) and one of my favorites is kimchi jeon. Mabel decided to waffle some kimchi jeon and make a bulgogi kimchi-jeon sandwich.

And finally, not kimchi related but Korea related. My friend Amy Ginther was featured in this week’s cover story on New York Time Magazine. I am incredibly proud to be her friend. Please read this article about international adoption, adoptee identity and its implications.

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