Eating Korean

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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I had heard about the drinking vinegar craze in Korea for a few years now. And I’ve finally gotten a chance to taste some of them at the Fancy Food Show last week.
For those of you who’ve never heard of drinking vinegars, it’s not a new fad at all. In fact, it’s actually old [...]

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I mentioned “gimjang” in my previous post without giving an explanation (sorry I just got back from Korea and I’m still thinking in Konglish). So, I wanted to give a bit of explanation here.
Gimjang is serious gimchi-making. It’s the traditional annual event when families make huge load of gimchi in preparation for “eumdong,” the [...]

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Just a couple of weeks ago, I made my way through the curvy mountain roads of Gangwondo, the most mountainous province in South Korea. Tucked in one of its hilly corners are the largest fields of napa cabbage in the country.

We rushed to get to the fields, but alas, they had farmed most of [...]

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Well, I’m always a day late and a dollar short. But I hope y’all had a lovely Chuseok! Chuseok, is Korea’s Harvest Moon Festival, celebrating the bountiful harvest by paying respect to our elders and our dead, on the day of the “boleum dal” (harvest moon).
I had a busy day visiting relatives and meeting new [...]

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Sometimes, American fast foods gets exported to a place (y’know, like Korea) and then things just go wrong.
I just saw an example of it in the Korean fast food chain, Lotteria. This is how they’re celebrating their 30th anniversary

with a shrimp and boolgogi burger.
Some kinds of fusion, just shouldn’t happen.

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When I first got an email from Benjamin Lee, I thought for a second that my nine-year-old nephew had finally learned how to use email. “Lee” being a common name in Korea (second only to “Kim”), it only took a couple of seconds to realized that this Benjamin Lee was not a relation, but the [...]

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A BIG THANKS to everyone who came to my lectures, signings and cooking classes. The book tour was a resounding success and it was a real pleasure to meet so many people interested in Korean food!
I wanted to share with you a gift I received from a lovely woman, who took one my cooking classes [...]

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By popular request, I’ve worked out a basic black bean sauce you can use to make jjajangmyeon, jjajangbap and other yummy things.
2 tablespoons oil (peanut, canola or vegetable, anything you want to use, but not olive)
2 tablespoons fermented black beans, rinsed and drained
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup chicken broth
1 tablespoon soy sauce
2 tablespoons rice [...]

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