Eating Korean

In a city as large and densely populated as Seoul, it pays to get lost every once in awhile and I’ve been lost plenty in doing my research for my upcoming Frommer’s Seoul Day by Day guide (which isn’t available yet, since I haven’t written it). It’s coming out Spring 2011.
Last week, I got [...]

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While the French colonialism of Vietnam resulted in bahn mi sandwiches, the American involvement in the Korean War led to “budae jjigae,” which translates directly to “army base stew.” It was also called “Johnson Tahng” (”tahng” means soup and “Johnson” was a reference to the common American surname).
Some of us affectionately call it “spam [...]

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Although Koreans have been eating fried chicken for years, it hasn’t been until the last couple of years that Americans have been made aware of the special flavor of Korean fried chicken. The articles in the New York Times and Saveur magazine made it seem like it was some new discovery.

I’ve been having a good [...]

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This isn’t really about Korean food, but I wanted to share this anyway.
A couple of years ago, I tore out my front lawn (actually, it probably took a couple of years to get it barren) and put in fruit trees and a vegetable garden. This year, I had an overabundance of tomatoes, squashes, zucchini, eggplants, [...]

Read the rest of An Embarrassment of Riches

I’m working on a new travel guide (A Day by Day guide for Seoul for Frommer’s) and thinking about essential Korean phrases and pronunciation of Korean for English (and other, non-native) speakers. Then, I remembered that I had recorded a short pronunciation guide for the SF Weekly a couple of months ago.

The challenge of [...]

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I had the joy of attending the Fancy Food Show a couple of weeks ago and ate more gourmet food than a girl should be allowed to in 3 days.
Tucked in a small corner of the Javits Center were the real secrets of the culinary market—small independent purveyors directly selling their wares, packaging their grandmother’s [...]

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Now that summer is officially here, I wanted to share with you my favorite gimchi to make when it’s hot — Oi Gimchi!

(The lovely photo is by Julie Toy.)
It’s a refreshingly light gimchi for the hot weather and goes so nicely with galbi and other grilled meats.
Since I live walking distance to a largely [...]

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I know you’ve all been waiting with baited breath for the update of my Frommer’s South Korea guide. Ha ha.
It’s officially out (as of today!).

I tried to squeeze in more fun stuff — like the farm for dwenjang, herbal markets in the mountains, secret beaches, tasty restaurants (like the one where the chef makes [...]

Read the rest of Frommer’s South Korea (2nd Edition) is out!

When most Korean mothers tell their kids that they’re making mandu and to come get some, you don’t expect to have to make it yourself. Not my mom. Not only is she not even there when I go to pick up the mandu, but there’s just a giant tub of filling in the refrigerator and [...]

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One of my favorite holidays in Korea is the “Day the Buddha Came ” (or Buddha’s Birthday, for short), which is celebrated with the Lotus Lantern Festival.

All of the Buddhist temples throughout the country will be celebrating on Friday May 21st with a lantern-lighting ceremony when the sun goes down.
In Seoul, there will be [...]

Read the rest of The Day the Buddha Came