The Food That Made Me

9/22/2025

Kids, group projects are best with friends and not with random classmates who you aren’t familiar with. Yesterday, Mommy and I had brunch with Uncle and Auntie Peanut Butter. They brought delicious pastries and pumpkin espresso ale, which both were delicious.

A little about Uncle Peanut Butter is that we had been office mates for almost 7 years. We were part of a cohort of three people who entered our department at the same time, and we were put together as officemates. Over the years, he has been steadfast, willing to help, a wonderful listener, a humble sage, and the forever growing foodie. I have enjoyed our dynamic of friendship and as colleagues. Unfortunately, about a month ago, he needed to spread his wings and fly across the hall. To commemorate our years together, we made a plan to celebrate with lunch and making kimchi. Then, he flew across the hall to another office.

So, we celebrated. Well, I celebrated in my head at least. I made beef noodle soup and tofu for lunch. They were ok. We forgot the tomato paste and then the beef shank at the Korean market was super differently cut than the ones from the Chinese market, so it didn’t turn out as tender as I wanted. For the tofu, one of them didn’t set, which I am assuming is because I didn’t stir long enough. Food mysteries. Detective Daddy on the case. I’ll tell you guys how to make them another time. That requires pages of writing and Daddy is still trying to experiment with the tofu. After lunch, we started on our kimchi adventure.

How to make Kimchi

(I copied this almost straight from Maangchi. Please don’t sue me.)

Ingredients

8 24oz mason jars. (Make sure that you have sterilized them beforehand.)

For salting cabbage: 6 pounds napa cabbage ½ cup Kosher salt (probably going to need more depending on how evenly you spread it)

For making porridge: 2 cups water 2 tablespoons glutinous rice flour 2 tablespoons sugar

Vegetables: 2 cups Korean radish matchsticks (or daikon radish) 1 cup carrot matchsticks 7 to 8 green onions minced 1 cup chopped Asian chives minched 1 cup water dropwort (minari)

Seasonings and spices: ½ cup garlic cloves, minced 2 teaspoon ginger, minced 1 medium onion, minced ½ cup fish sauce ¼ cup fermented salted shrimp (saeujeot) with the salty brine, chopped (you have to get this from a Korean market. It was pretty hard to find.) 2 cups red pepper flakes (gochugaru) (I used the Chinese version. Supposely it is spicier. We will see if I we regret my life choices.)

Instructions:

1. Mise en place all of the ingredients. (Do as I say and don’t do as I did. No. I didn’t fully mise en place. )
   1. I was struggling with the carrots and was mincing everything like a madman. I was using my chef’s knife like a Mezzaluna. They are so pretty. I should have taken out my cleaver, though.
   2. Auntie gracefully cut the daikon and ginger.
2. https://www.maangchi.com/recipe/tongbaechu-kimchi Let’s start with the cabbage. Honestly, just go to her website and see how she is doing all of the cuts.
   1. Dunk them in water for a bit and shake it out.
   2. Start salting each leaf. Why? I am not sure. I’m guessing that you are trying to break down the cabbage over the course of two hours. Uncle was really good at this.
   3. Then, for two hours, turn them over every 30 minutes. It should be pulling water out of the cabbage. So, there should be more and more salt water over the next two hours.
   4. Wash the salt off. We almost forgot. It would have been really salty.
3. Cook the porridge. Keep stirring. Wait for it to cool.
   1. Add the cooled porridge into a large bowl. Pour all of the spices and daikon and carrot and greens in there and start mixing.
4. Here comes the fun part. I had to put gloves on and then put some of the red paste on every single leaf. Each pasted leaf has to be rolled up and put into the jars. 8 jars done and 1 jar wasn’t used. Boom. Done. No one else wanted to do it. I’m not taking you guys to eat raw spicy crab then!
5. Mommy made the noodles and bok choy for the beef noodle soup. Her contribution was outside the actual kimchi making process.

Results: It was fun. We were a good team together, and we complemented each other’s strengths and weaknesses. There weren’t too many cooks in the kitchen. We balanced chatting and cooking. I would say overall we get an A-. We could have mise en place more and memorized the directions a bit more. But, we worked, laughed, and had fun. Successful group project. Until next time! What else should we celebrate?