Weygooks make kimchi for charity. Photo courtesy of Newsis The JoongAng Daily reports over 2500 volunteers arrived at the former Sudo Girls’ High School playground in Yongsan, Seoul to make 50,000 kimchi cabbage heads worth of kimchi to be dispersed to the underprivileged as well as those who operate facilities for the disabled in Yongsan….
1,000 subscribers on YouTube
Today is a milestone for me on my YouTube channel. I had my 1,000th subscriber today. Not bad for a hobby channel with only 14 videos made over a two-year period. Most people start with a blog and use videos to augment the blog. I did the reverse, I was on YouTube for almost two…
Behind the scenes: Soju Cream Sauce video
Every video is a challenge, a learning experience. This video was no exception. Here are some tips we picked up during the creation of this video that might help you when making your own. Do a few audio tests before you start filming “for real.” The wireless microphone channel we usually use to record was…
Treating myself to kimchi-making in San Francisco
I took a day off work on Oct. 27 to travel to San Francisco to take a kimchi- and sauerkraut-making class. Urban Kitchen San Francisco (UKSF) and the Center for Urban Education about Sustainable Agriculture (CUESA) sponsored the workshop hosted by Happy Girl Kitchen‘s Chef Todd Champagne at San Francisco’s landmark Ferry Building. Here was…
Chuncheon-style Kimchi Pizza 2nd Anniversary
Today is the second anniversary of posting my Chuncheon-style Kimchi Pizza video, which started my public culinary journey. I’m still curious what the city fathers of Chuncheon think about a Google search for “Chuncheon” bringing up this video on the first page. That might explain why the video has over 43,000 hits, which is 10,000-plus…
New England doesn’t have leaves as beautiful as these
Many tourist websites tout the beautiful fall splendor of the American Northeast, with their fall leaves turning beautiful shades of red, orange and yellow. Many believe you can’t find such rich and varied colors in California. They are wrong. Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower. ~Albert Camus One can’t help…
Sign of the times: Recession in wine country
I was driving on Riebli Road near Santa Rosa, Calif. on Nov. 1 and noticed this sign by some vines of New Vine Zinfindel(Zin). It is owned by Bastoni Vineyards, according to WineMap. The US Dept. of Agriculture (USDA) reported that the 2008 average price for Sonoma County Zin, which is the basis for determining…
Recollections of NK’s famine
Blogger Grace Meng posted a blog on Oct. 30 2009 about two different articles she read recently contrasting the abundance of food in South Korea as evidenced by the annual ritual of kimjang versus the misery and starvation in North Korea, which reached its zenith in the mid to late 90’s when an estimated 2…
Germane wine for spicy Korean food
I am asked frequently what wines go best with Korean food. The answer is more complex than one might imagine. To match a wine with a spicy meal such as dakkalbi or kimchi chigae (kimchi stew), a sweeter white wine such as riesling, sauvignon blanc or gewürztraminer usually is recommended. Spicy food + red wine…
Celebrating my 100th post
In the blogsphere, writing your 100th blog post is considered a milestone. Whether it takes you 3 months or 3 years to reach 100 posts, it’s considered an accomplishment. Readers start to believe you’re in this for the longer term and take you (and what you have to say) a little more seriously. I started…