Last week, I got on the subway at Cheondam Station and was wondering why there were people selling stuff on the subway train.

As I continued to walk, I saw that the entire train was filled with food vendors! So, I went inside to investigate this subway “shijang.”

There were people selling fruits and vegetables, natural honey, homemade chile paste and all kinds of other foods and beverages. This man even had a refrigerated case from which he was selling fresh beef.

Most of the vendors are farmers or direct suppliers, who grow and make the products themselves. Even most Seoulites, who’ve lived in the city their whole lives don’t know about this market, especially since it’s an occasional occurrence.

The Cheongdam station is off of subway line 7 (in Gangnam-gu). The subway shijang is available from both directions (since the train is parked in the middle with both doors open). They operate only on the 2nd and 4th weeks of the month on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, only from 3-8pm.

There are other subway shijang at various other subway stations, but they are more sporadic and changeable. The Cheongdam subway market has been in operation since the end of 2009.

Some of us affectionately call it “spam stew” because it’s made with spam and vienna sausages. I know it sounds a little strange, but during the war, canned meat and hot dogs were the only sources of protein available. Koreans took the processed meat and made a spicy hot pot with whatever ingredients they had around, all spiced with garlic and gochujang (chile paste). A budae jjigae could have contained macaroni, baked beans and ramen, in addition to canned meat.

You can still get the dish in restaurants in Korea. The satellite town of Uijeongbu, where an American army base is still located, is famous for its budae jjigae restaurants. And in Seoul, there has been a bit of a revival as of late, due to a chain restaurant here that’s been serving variations of the dish. Here’s their menu:

Although they’ve fancied it up since the war, it’s still a poor man’s dish. For only 6,000 to 7,000 won you and a friend can share a bubbling hot pot of spam, hot dogs, gimchi, tofu, baked beans, onions, rice cakes, mushrooms and other delights. Here’s a close-up of a couple of variations:

They even serve the dish in Korean restaurants in Los Angeles and other places where Korean immigrants are concentrated. It may be one of the first Asian-American fusion dishes, thanks to an unfortunate war.

I’ve been having a good laugh with everyone going crazy about Korean fried chicken, like the double frying and the seasoning was such a big secret. Koreans have been double frying our chicken since at least some time in the 1970s. And the Chinese have been doing it for even longer. The other secret to our crispy fried textures is the addition of cornstarch in the batter.

I remember how excited the Food & Wine Annual Cookbook editor was after she had tried my Yangnyeom Dak recipe from my first cookbook (Eating Korean).

Now, Korean “fast” food joints have re-exported fried chicken back to the United States. Kyochon in the Los Angeles area and Bon Chon Chicken in both NYC and LA are the two franchises that have been creating all the buzz.

Unfortunately, the imports do mostly fried chicken wings vs. the Korean way of cutting up the whole chicken and frying it all in its funny shapes, bones and all. (Though you can get whole chicken from Kyochon)

The beauty of friend chicken joints in Korea is how easy and quick it is to get your order delivered. In addition to the yangnyeom dak (pictured above), we also ordered pa dak (which is fried chicken w/o any seasoning topped with a giant pile of green onions). You dip it all in this goopy sauce made with soy sauce and spicy mustard. All the fried chicken is served with a side of pickled daikons and delivered in these flat boxes that look like thick pizza containers.

From all the American/Korean imports/exports, fried chicken is way better than the other famous American/Korean import/export — budae jjigae (spam stew)!

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, Calamondin, etc., and was thinking about starting a food exchange with my neighbors. Well, wouldn’t you know it? Somebody got there before I did! And boy am I glad, because I sure don’t have the time to have organized it all.

So, I joined the Hillside Produce Cooperative run by the lovely Hynden Walch and this was my first month of participating. Saturday was the exchange (and the cooperative’s 2-year anniversary!). I dropped off a couple of bags of vegetables, fruits and herbs from the garden. A few hours later, my doorbell rang and a nice stranger returned my tote bags full of other goodies.

Here’s a picture of what I got laid out on my kitchen counter:

Here is a list of the wonderful items that were shared: lemons, Meyer lemons, oranges, grapefruit, Thompson seedless grapes, big juicy figs, limes, big Jim peppers, tomatoes, heirloom tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, roma tomatoes, Anaheim chiles, yellow zucchini, green zucchini, crookneck squash, Armenian cucumber, calamondin, nectarines, Japanese eggplant, chives, sorrel, chard, kale, butter lettuce, frisée lettuce, tarragon, thyme, mint, rosemary, pineapple mint, sage, bay, oregano, lemongrass, black basil, sweet basil, Indian burning sage (which I accidentally ate some of before realizing it was for rubbings), lettuce seedlings, and lavender!

It was a wonderful gift from my neighbors. Visit the Hillside Produce Cooperative website to find out how you can do it in your own neighborhood!

There’s something so liberating and wonderful about eating food you grew with your own hands. Even more life-affirming is when you shared that food with friends, loved ones, neighbors and strangers. Hope you get to taste warm tomatoes from the vine, grow a pot of herbs on the window sill, or even buy something fresh directly from the growers at a local Farmer’s Market.

Happy summer eating everyone!

The challenge of approximating Korean words with the English alphabet, is that some of the sounds don’t exist in English and there is no standardization for spelling (Even the Korean government and tourist bureaus change the spelling of city names, etc., every few years making it even more difficult for writers like me to keep it straight.)

I try to spell words as close to the way it sounds in English when pronounced while keeping the Korean government’s usage (so that maps and signs make a bit of sense).

Here is a guide to pronouncing the alphabet (which is a syllabary and generally regular) from my South Korea travel guide:

THE CONSONANTS
ㄱ A cross between “g” and “k,” pronounced like in the word “go,” now spelled with the letter “g” (old spelling was “k”)
ㄲ A double consonant, the sound of a hard “g” or “k” as in the Spanish “queso,” spelled “kk”
ㄴ Pronounced the same as “n,” and spelled with an “n”
ㄷ A cross between “d” and “t,” as in “dark,” spelled with a “d” (old spelling: “t”)
ㄸ A double consonant, the sound of a hard “d/t” as in the Spanish word “tío” or the “t” in “study,” spelled with “dd”
ㄹ A cross between “r” and “l,” similar to the Spanish “gracias,” spelled with an “l” or “r”
ㅁ Pronounced like the letter “m”
ㅂ A cross between the letters “b” and “p,” as in “Busan” or the “b” in “boar,” now spelled with the letter “b” (old spelling “p”)
ㅃ A double consonant, the sound of a hard “b” or “p” as in the Spanish “Pepe,” spelled “bb”
ㅅ Similar to the letter “s”
ㅆ A double consonant, the sound of a hard “s” as in the word “sour,” spelled with “ss”
ㅇ When used in the beginning of a syllable, it allows the vowel to be sounded without a hard consonant sound. At the end of a syllable, it sounds like “ng,” as in the end of the word “song”
ㅈ Pronounced like the letter “j” in “jazz” (old spelling “ch”).
ㅉ A double consonant, the sound of a hard “j,” I spelled in this book with “jj”
ㅊ Pronounced like “ch” in “choice”
ㅋ Pronounced like “k”
ㅌ Pronounced like “t”
ㅍ Pronounced like “p”
ㅎ Pronounced like “h”

THE VOWELS
ㅏ Pronounced like “ah,” as in “spa”
ㅑ Pronounced “ya”
ㅓ Pronounced “uh,” as in “umbrella,” spelled “eo”
ㅕ Pronounced “yuh,” as in “yum,” spelled “yeo”
ㅗ Pronounced “oh,” as in “rope”
ㅛ Pronounced “yo”
ㅜ Pronounced “ooh,” as in “stew,” often spelled “u” or sometimes “oo”
ㅠ Pronounced “yu,” as in “you,” spelled “yu” or “yoo”
ㅡ Pronounced “eu,” as in “good” or “hood”
ㅣ Pronounced “ee,” as in “see”
ㅔ A combination vowel pronounced “eh”
ㅐ A combination vowel pronounced “ye,” as in “yes”
ㅘ A combination vowel pronounced “wa”
ㅞ A combination vowel pronounced “whe,” as in “sweat”
ㅝ A combination vowel pronounced “wuh,” as in “was”
ㅟ A combination vowel pronounced “wee”
ㅢ A combination vowel pronounced “eui” (but said quickly)

So, I’m putting in phrases and words in my new travel guide, are there any that you’d like to see? Let me know and I’ll add them to the book. Thanks!

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 secret recipe or trying to fulfill a dream with a newly bottled sauce or a blend of exciting spices.

Robert Kim was one of those people literally sharing his halmuhni’s secret recipe for making boolgogi-flavored beef jerky.

If you’re not Korean, you may not know about the Korean propensity for beef jerky, which is a popular anju (drinking snack). Koreans returning from America used to fill their giant luggage with enough coffee, make-up and beef jerky to bring back to their waiting family back home.

Now that there are Costco stores in Korea and beef jerky is more easily accessible, we don’t have to pack as much dried meat for the journey home, but we still do love the smoky, salty, spicy dried stuff.

Go•ggi (which means “meat” in Korean) is a dried beef round seasoned like boolgogi (sweet, salty with a bit of spice). Robert found a factory in New Mexico to make it like his grandma used to make it and now you can try that homemade taste, too.

It sells for about $9 to $10 for a 2-ounce package mostly in New York, with select markets in Connecticut, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and California with wider distribution coming, hopefully, soon. You can see the full list here.

Photos courtesy of Go•ggi.

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 world and people have been drinking vinegar for its supposedly healthful benefits for centuries. From balsamic vinegar downed by the Romans to fruit vinegars used as mixers in the South during prohibition, drinking vinegars (also called “shrubs”) spans different cultures and time boundaries.

In Korea, they’ve been touting them as anti-oxidants, cleansing agents and digestive aids for the past few years.

The Korean versions come in flavors like persimon (gamsikcho), pomegranate, black raspberry, blueberry and others. The black vinegar is called “heuksikcho” and any number of the red berry or pomegranate flavors are labeled “hongcho” or “hongsikcho.” They are delightfully tangy and not so sour to make you pucker.

You’re not supposed to drink them straight, but diluted with some ice water, hot water, seltzer or even used as an ingredient for mixed drinks. Korean also mix it with milk to make a “yogeureauteu”-type drink, as well.

Toby Cecchini even wrote about drinking vinegars in the New York Times Magazine last year.

He suggests making your own by soaking your choice of fruit in a good quality apple cider or wine vinegar for about a week; adding some sugar, boiling for an hour, straining and keeping the bottle in the fridge for months.

I haven’t taken to making my own yet and I’m skeptical about the health benefits. However, I did find the drinking vinegars to be a refreshing alternative to heavily sweet juices or corn syrup-laden mixers.

Here in America, we can find them in Korean, Chinese or Japanese markets. Or go crazy and make your own. Even if they’re not good for you, they’re pretty dang tasty and they couldn’t hurt.

(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 Middle Eastern market, I’ve been making them with Persian cucumbers, which are thinner and slightly sweeter than the Korean oi. Dare I say it? They’re almost better than the Korean cucumbers. I’ll have to make another batch, just to be sure.

But for now, you can see the full recipe from my last cookbook, Quick and Easy Korean Cooking, on Epicurious.com

Happy Summer, everyone! Stay cool like a cucumber.

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 jjajangmyeon noodles by hand!), wild tea fields and more.

I really do hope you make a trip to Korea soon and see the gorgeous scenery (like the one on the front cover!). You can order a copy of the guide on Amazon by clicking here

I always prepare everything in advance before I sit down: the filling, the skins, the right-sized spoon, a cold bowl of water and a tray to hold the finished mandu.

You start by spooning enough filling for the middle of the skin, but not too much that it gets overstuffed.

Then, you dip your finger in the water and wet about 60% of the edges (you want to do more than 1/2 since when you put in the folds, you’ll end up using more than half the skin edge. The water helps seal the skin and keep the folds together.

Then you take your thumb and forefingers of both hands to make the ripples, poking with the forefinger of your right hand as you pinch with your left. You’ll get the hang of it as you practice.

Once you’ve made all the ripples, make sure the mandu is completely sealed and pinch together parts that aren’t. Repeat until you’ve used up all the filling or run out of skins.

If you have extra skins, you can just make fried wonton strips or make crispy mandu with just a little bit of filling. If you have too much filling leftover, you can make small, flat half-dollar-sized rounds, dust them in flour, dip them in egg batter and have a different jun.

My mom laughs because she says that my mandu look like a machine made them. Here they are in a row:

I guess she’s right. The do look terribly machine stamped, don’t they? It’s funny b/c my mom is the one who taught me how to make mandu. It’s just that I’ve made so many thousands in my life (As you can see, my mom just makes me the filling and I have to make them myself), I got pretty good at it.

So, once you have all your mandu laid out on a tray, stick them in the freezer for a couple of hours. Once they’re solid, you can put them in a large zipper bag and they won’t stick together. Then, you’ll have plenty of dumplings for future bowls of mandu gook (dumpling soup) or mandu twigim (fried mandu).

Enjoy!