The Kimchimonger News Blog

When my dad wanted to get me and my husband this Zojirushi cooker as a wedding present, I insisted that it wasn’t necessary. I even claimed that I wouldn’t need a rice cooker at all. This was one of those rare occasions where I was grateful my father’s stubbornness prevailed. I rave about our rice cooker all the time- it cooks the rice evenly and quickly, and it has a retractable cord and it sings a little ditty when the rice is done, and most importantly- it’s all cute and round like a cartoon character. Seriously people – a good rice cooker is the secret to a hot, easy dinner (rice+kimchi+protein= done).

Speaking of kimchi … By now, everyone knows about kimchi refrigerators, right? But the kimchi appliance that you might not be familiar with is the kimchi air purifier. Made by Korean company, LG (yes, the same LG that makes non-quacky electronics like cell phones and computer monitors), the air purifying unit is “equipped with a filter made out of kimchi that destroys the killer bird flu virus,” according to Forbes.com. Many Koreans credited kimchi for the country’s general resistance to avian flu, and while we’re not saying that it’s impossible, it seems like a pretty big investment to make when there are more anecdotes than research to back the product up. Since the whole bird flu thing has blown over, you can pick one up at kimchius.com at the discounted price of $799 and use it to ward off swine flu (yes, apparently kimchi is good for that too).

As much as we adore kimchi over here at Kimchi Headquarters, we prefer to keep the delicious aroma confined to the jar or the bowl. In fact, at home we have been dehydrating our own kimchi to enjoy as a crispy, non-smelly, on-the-go snack. The food dehydrator sucks that hot stank right out of the kimchi… and distributes it throughout the building. So much for confining the smell…

We’re not big fans of masking the smell (we’d need a pretty big mask, anyway, hardee har har), but through the power of the internet we have discovered a few good odor neutralizing ideas. The always witty parenting blog, Kimchi Mamas, has a helpful comment thread devoted to reducing the kimchi smell in your fridge, including this nifty Hippo the Odorbuster deodorizer found at Korean markets and made specifically for kimchi refrigerators. Since our problem is a little more widespread, we are going to attempt this fix found on (another neat blog) A Year of Slow Cooking that we like to call “baking soda super stinker sucker .” Basically you just mix baking soda with water and heat it in a crock pot to absorb smells. Easy peazy… if you can find your crock pot, that is.

Somehow the topic of karaoke came up over the weekend, and we found ourselves reminiscing. Not about karaoke-bar karaoke, but noraebang–the Korean/Asian style karaoke where you rent a little room and belt it out with a group of friends. It’s all the fun of a spontaneous car singalong, but with microphones and booze.

So today when we stumbled across this somewhat crass webcomic “Night out in K-town,” We thought to ourselves, “What a happy coincidence!” Imagine our joy when we realized the starring characters in this comic (In the Kimchi Jar by Han Kim) are actually kimchi ingredients. Awesome.

PS: Speaking of webcomics, we highly recommend hooking up with the smart, funny and handsome XKCD. You could use a good laugh.

Aloha- Granny Choe & Co. are on winter break! We will be back in the office on January 15th. Orders placed now through January 14th will be shipped at that time.

Photo by kevindooley via CC/2.0

Hello kimchifans!

We have 3 quick and important-ish announcements for you. And since we know you’re swamped with marketing people practicing their finest Jedi mind tricks on you this time of year, we promise that we won’t even mention the words “holiday season” or “last minute shopping,” although we must warn that in some cases, they are sort of implied.

#1 Have you seen Granny Choe’s magical new video entitled “How Kimchi is Made” on YouTube? It has 8000+ views already. Please watch it and share with friends. You’ll be glad you did. We’ll be glad you did too because it took us ages to make it.

#2 If you order 3 or more jars of Granny Choe’s award-winning kimchi from now until the end of December, you can get 20% off your entire order by using coupon code “HOTSTUFF09”.

#3 If (as we suspect) you are planning on buying kimchi for all of your family, friends, neighbors and pets, kindly place your orders on GrannyChoe.com by end of day Wednesday (12/16) to ensure that it arrives by Dec. 24th.

You can go about your business. Kimchi on.
–Granny Choe & Co.

GrannyChoe.com
facebook.com/GrannyChoe

Thanksgiving is officially over, but here at Kimchi HQ we are still giving humble thanks, for today Granny Choe’s kimchi is featured on Mouthing Off (the Food & Wine magazine blog). Writer, Kelly Snowden, says Granny Choe’s is the next best thing to homemade kimchi and we are inclined to agree (humbly again, of course).

Please check out Granny Choe’s magical new video entitled “How Kimchi is Made.” You’ll be glad you did. We’ll be glad you did too because it took us ages to make it.

Video link:

How Kimchi is Made (Granny Choe\’s Ninja Peppers)

Hey, look! It’s our kimchi on the “Hotpot” page of KoreAm’s November issue, just hitting shelves now. Awesome possum.

PS: They’ve just relaunched their website, and it looks great… AND it’s a wealth of information on contemporary Korean-American culture (in case you are looking to brush up).

We are pleased to present to you the winner of Granny Choe’s Stinky Stuff Art Contest: Mr. James Gulliver Hancock. We aren’t authorities on art or anything… we chose it simply because we like how funky and fun it is (and really, isn’t that reason enough?). Here’s what James wrote about his entry:

Hi there my name is James Gulliver Hancock and my friend Jessica went to the Machine Project Kimchi event. We both love the astonishing stinky flavour of kimchi and I did this drawing in homage to that. The jar and the recipe she brought back from the event inspired this drawing.

You might have noticed from his spelling of “flavour” that Mr. Hancock is not from around these parts. As we have learned, he is an international award-winning artist with a client list that makes hipsters swoon (Nylon Magazine, Herman Miller furniture, and Simon & Schuster Publishers are just a few). You can check out some of his other artwork on his homepage, and if you (unlike us) are cool enough to have an iPhone, you can even get an iPhone cover with one of his gorgeous illustrations on it (this one appears to be of a kraken threatening a pirate ship).

James, please enjoy your prize of a year’s supply of stinky, spicy delicious kimchi from Granny Choe’s! You deserve it.