Hey all, great news! Granny Choe’s Kimchi Co. has just officially won a Best of LA 2012 award from LA Weekly for BEST KIMCHI. Woohoo!
We celebrate our little company’s 4th birthday next month, and we are so honored that, well, that we’ve been noticed at all. Thank you to all our friends and fans who have been so generous with support and encouragement. We love this!
We wholeheartedly believe that white kimchi doesn’t get the love that it deserves. It may not be spicy, but it sure is stinky and delicious. Thank you to the fermentation fiends at Draft magazine for including Granny Choe’s baek / mild white kimchi in your Sept/Oct issue! In their words, “This spiceless version’s anything but tame: Ginger and garlic, a lactic tang and distinct bubbles make each bite zippy.”
Food journalist (and former Gourmet magazine Editor in Chief), Ruth Reichl, says that in 2012, “Korean flavors will make a giant surge, and kimchi may push Sriracha off its perch.” She and The New York Daily News are in agreement. Believe it or not, we still have a lot of people ask us, “What’s kimchi?” Is the day coming when kimchi will become a household staple across America? We’ll keep our fingers crossed.
“Vanity Googling” can be mildly entertaining… you know, typing your own name into a search engine and seeing what comes up. We hadn’t VG-ed ourselves in a while (although, we mostly do it for “important research purposes” and only a little because we’re bored/vain), so we gave it a shot and were pleasantly surprised to find our kimchi over at popular cooking blog, The Kitchn.
The article is a comparison of making vs. buying kimchi. And while you might think that we, as professional kimchimongers, would try to discourage the good people of America from making their own kimchi, we actually agree with the article- If you love kimchi, we think you should try making your own! It’s pretty messy and time-consuming, but it’s fun (especially if you recruit a kimchi-loving friend) and the chili-infused experience makes for interesting dinner party conversation. The trickiest ingredient to find (unless you have a Korean grocery store near you) is gochugaru (Korean chili pepper flakes). You can’t use red pepper flakes or cayenne… we tried this once just for kicks (Waste of time). But the article says you can buy gochugaru on Amazon. Not sure of the quality, but gotta love the internet for giving you options!
Also, we love the opening, “Kimchi is just about the hottest thing, both literally and figuratively, to hit American cuisine since Sriracha.” To read the full story: Make or Buy: Kimchi.
LA Weekly says Granny Choe’s Kimchi “is the best store-bought kimchi we’ve ever tasted.” Many thanks to them for the kind words and…. woohoo!
Read the full review here.
According to recent article in the Chicago Tribune, kimchi’s popularity is on the rise. In the article, one chef says, “Kimchee is becoming more mainstream… The idea of fermenting things and creating more umami flavors seems to be something resonating on the American palate.” He adds, ”Korean flavors are big flavors.” We would have to agree.
Read the whole article here: Kimchee’s New Chapter: Korea’s Traditional Condiment Blurring Culinary Borders
PS: Thanks to Sister Choe’s friend, “Ms. Sparklehooter,” for this wonderful dinner pic 
We love to see others loving on Granny Choe’s kimchi!
Hurrah! Kimchi’s come uppance has finally arrived… according to an article in The New York Daily News, anyway. This makes us kimchimongers very happy. Here’s a snippet:
“Could kimchi, the fiery, spicy fermented cabbage native to Korea become the food item of 2012?
According to international restaurant consultancy group Baum + Whiteman in New York, Korean cuisine is predicted to emerge as a robust, influential global food trend in 2012, with its distinctive, punchy flavors penetrating mainstream menus…”
You can read the rest of the story here.
Maybe one day in the not-too-distant future it will actually be cool (okay, at least acceptable) to walk around reeking of chili pepper and garlic. There is hope for us yet…
We’re not talking about nuclear power here. In 2008, South Korea’s Ministry for Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries launched a well-funded campaign to make Korean food (including kimchi) one of the top five cuisines in the world by the year 2017. As much as us folks here at Kimchi Headquarters adore Korean food, we scoffed at this “top-down” approach because most people squirm at the idea of a government organization telling us what we should like…
But we spoke recently with an anthropology researcher at Indiana University who informed us that Granny Choe’s Kimchi Co. is part of a small, but growing group of boutique kimchimongers (we would like to go ahead and take credit for coining that term), and she mentioned that the Korean food scene in New York City is booming…
Then we saw this Bon Appetit blog post about Los Angeles that says, “Skip Sushi, Eat Kimchi… Nobu and his sushi Nazi spawn have been relegated to the sidelines in the ‘What’s Your Favorite Ethnic Cuisine?’ game as Korean food takes the city by truck and by cook.”
We don’t believe everything the ministry says, but we do believe Bon Appetit. Could it be that Korea’s master plan to globalize their cuisine is actually working? Or is it just crazy random happenstance?
This winning photo above is of some Korean diplomats and industry leaders digging into a giant bowl of bibimbap together. On top of the rice it says, “BUY KOREAN FOOD.” This seems a little wacky out of context. It was taken last weekend at the subtly-titled trade event, Buy Korean Food 2011, a joint project between the Ministry for Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries and aT Korea Agro- Fisheries Trade Corporation “to showcase Korean products globally.”
Granny Choe was not in on the brainstorming meeting, but we’re pretty sure it went something like this:
Mr. Kim: A giant bowl of kimchi? No, too smelly… Oh, I’ve got it! We can all toss a giant bowl of bibimbap together! It will symbolize the different cultures of the world joining together in their adoration of Korean food. I will bring the token white representative…
Ms. Song: Right! Nothing says “photo op” like a bowl of rice that’s big enough to bathe in. I am especially excited to wear our matching aprons again!
Here’s a little gem from an article in The New York Times:
A gathering was held in Seoul last week to promote Korean food, with European master chefs coming in for panels and demonstrations. Michel Troisgros, the renowned French chef from Roanne, listened to a Korean official hold forth on the wonders of fermentation and an ambitious project to export Korean foods like kimchi.
“I think you have to stop talking about fermentation,” Mr. Troisgros told the man. “It’s not sexy.”
I guess that puts our blog in the ”Not Sexy” category, eh? We are okay with that.
