November 29, 2007

• Its kimchi time!  Last Thursday (Thanksgiving) and Friday we made kimchi for the next year.  This kimchi will last until December next year and will feed all 80 kids and the staff and other people who eat in our cafeteria.  And remember, we eat kimchi everyday with every meal (although I skip it from time to time ).  I'm going to take you through the kimchi making process, with random pictures thrown in... this will likely be a long entry...

  DAY ONE

  First we had to unwrap the million bags of cabbage

  

  After unwrapping, we had to slice the edges of the cabbage and then slice it in half

  

  

  Next we would put the cabbages in these huge tubs and heap big crystals of salt on them

  

  The littlest ones wanted to come out and get a better look (most kids were at school when we worked, although a couple high schoolers came home early because of exams)... lets take a break from the kimchi and watch the kids play

  

  Min Seung running from me

  

  Jina trying to give me the peace sign

  

  Mu Jong office worker playing toss with little Jung Ho

  

  Hyun Bin and Jung Ho helping push Min Seung

  

  Min Seung 

  

  Here staff workers and volunteers are working slicing up the various onions we would add to the seasoning

  

  Jung Hwan came home from school early... he had chocolate around his lips, dead give-away that he had eaten ice cream before coming home

  

  With Choong Hee (high schooler), my work partner... yes, Choong Hee was cold...

  

  All the cabbages have now filled those huge tubs... they will soak in the salt for the next 20 hours until we begin work on them the next day

  

  After that work was done, we went inside to the cafeteria and worked on cutting open garlic cloves

  

  Tedious work, but I enjoyed talking with the dorm mothers and high schoolers (Go Hyun is looking up here)

  

  DAY TWO

  We had to cut up the huge radishes and then finely slice them into what looked like mini french fries

  

  Min Kyung and Eun Young dorm mothers

  

  We also had to take all those salted cabbages and wash them in three different tubs and then spread them out to dry for a couple hours... this work hurt the back a bit, we still had a lot left to lay out when I took this picture...

  

  Next the DISGUSTING SEASONING... everything they put into this glop was disgusting... I think what you see here is little bits of shrimp mixed with the garlic along with chili pepper sauce

  

  After adding a bunch of other madness (stuff without English translation, with some of it smelling like old wet socks mixed with dung), that stuff in the tub was the end result of the spices... a spoonful of that stuff would probably kill you... ugh

  

  Next step is to mix the glop with the sliced radishes and the various sliced up onions

  

  A close up... the sliced things are radish and onion... the green leaves were the leaves at the ends of the radishes before we sliced them up

  

  Soon it looked like this... all red

  

  Once all that was well mixed, we would take a cabbage and stuff it with it... the cabbages on the trey being the end result

  

  Next step was to take the kimchi into the pit... a deep cellar in our home that most of the kids are scared to go into...

  

  We would then stuff the kimchi (and I mean stuff) into big kimchi pots and put lids over the pots... then we let the kimchi ferment and can eat anytime over the next year

  

  A view from inside... its deeper and longer then the picture looks

  

  Soo Hwan (high schooler) and So Yun (our home's dietician)

  

  We were really covered in red glop and looked like we belonged in a horror movie... too bad you can't see it that well in the picture...

  

  Now, you too can make kimchi!  Its really not that hard... cabbage, radish, onion, garlic, and whatever madness you want to make the sauce out of.  Not too bad.  God bless!

  • 8:32 am
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