Kimchi

I have been craving kimchi for a while now. I try to put these cravings off because Greg does not like it when I eat kimchi. The bad breath lasts for days.

We went to the Korean store, and I bought some. It's a cool little store. We let the boys pick out one treat each. Jeremy usually gets these tiny cream puff things that are filled with chocolate. They're called baseballs, and the packaging shows a cartoon kid in a baseball hat. Jonathan usually picks out a salty treat like shrimp chips (which makes the whole van smell pretty bad), but sometimes he gets Pocky. Grayson likes the Botan Rice Candy because it comes with some pretty realistic looking tatoos. Today Jeremy got his usual, Jonathan got this rice crispy log kind of things made of puffed rice, and Grayson got the rice candy and snuck in some strawberry Pocky. Greg got some seaweed wraps, and I spent some time looking at the kimchi in the refrigerated section. I guess the owner could see the longing look in my eye because he came over and asked if I wanted some. I was hesitant because they were all in very large kimchi jars, and I didn't need that much. Before I even said anything, he asked if I needed a smaller amount. I smiled and said yes. He said, "no plobrem. I make for you a smarrer one." He took a large kimchi jar and took it to the back. He came back with a nice small jar full of kimchi. Yay!

For dinner tonight we had seaweed and rice, egg rolls, and kimchi. Jeremy and Jonathan both wanted some. I asked Jeremy if he wanted me to wash off the hot stuff. He bravely said, "no. I'm just going to take it!" I put one "full-on" hot piece on his plate, but I put some in a strainer and washed it under cold water. Jonathan wanted a hot piece too, but the majority of what they ate was pretty well washed. They both did great with it. Jonathan filled up three drinking cups with cold water before getting started.

For me it was sweet relief to finally eat some. Since I am ruining my breath anyway, I ate a ton. It was pretty decent kimchee. Some kimchee that I've eaten in restaurants or even from the Korean store tastes a little funny to me. Either someone got too fancy and added too much ginger, or the hot paste is just "off", or there is something in it that I am not used to. I grew up on my mom's kimchee. My guess is that her cabbage kimchee is the "poor man's" kimchee. It's pretty basic, but since I grew up with that, I like it simple. I considered making my own kimchi. It's not hard. It seems that the traditional way is to open up a head of cabbage and coat each leaf with hot paste without tearing off the cabbage leaves. I don't remember my mom doing it this way. It seems like she chopped up the cabbage and mixed everything together. I think that is a faster way to do it. At some point someone probably mentioned to her that it was proper to coat each leaf individually. I'm sure my mom would have told them that this was a stupid way to do it when you could just chop the cabbage and mix it all together. She is a little short on tact and not afraid to offend. There are many types of kimchi made from different vegetables, and not all of it is hot, but the main one that people of think of when you say kimchi is the cabbage kimchi. Here is a one minute video about kimchi.


This is a five minute video about Korean food;