So I own a beef ranch and sell beef at our local farmers market, been there for a few years. I'm a veteran who spent 3 years and 3 months in Korea in the 90s and early 2000s and absolutely love the food. A Korean lady talked to me because we were offering galbi style waygu ribs and I talked to her a little while. She used to own a restaurant in California and when she heard how much I love Korean food she brought me some the next week. I gave her some ribs. Then she brought me more food. I gave her some oxtail. More food. Brisket. Ribeye. Etc.
If she wasn't 70, and married and I wasn't in a relationship I'd be in love. She's legit very sweet and I do love the food. Just thought I'd share some of what she's made me.

https://maangchi.substack.com/p/january-2026-a-personal-note

"Happy New Year! A bowl of New Year’s tteokguk for all of you!

Dear friends,

As we begin a new year, I want to share something personal with you.

My husband, David, who worked quietly behind the scenes on my website for the past 18 years, passed away recently. He was my cameraman, my editing partner, and my greatest supporter, and everything we built here was something we did together.

I want you to know that I am still here, and I will continue to be part of this community in the same way I always have by sharing, encouraging, and connecting through Korean food.

New videos may take a little longer for now as I make new arrangements, but our community is not going anywhere. I will return to making videos, step by step, when the time is right.

Thank you for your patience, your kindness, and for being here with me as I move forward.

Maangchi"

yes!

I visited my girlfriends family this summer in Korea and my mother in law made the most insane spread of food 🤤🤤🤤

Hey Folx! My girfriend Grace and I live on a small off grid homeatead and we try to be self suffcient as possible. Korean food is wonderful for long term, no refridgeration storage and is a staple for us. I wanted to shate with y'all our recipe for making simple, easy homemade kimchi.

Grace's 김장 (kimjang - kimchi making) recipe!

Note: kimchi is the Korean word for pickle. While Napa cabbage kimchi is the iconic Korean kimchi, we encourage you to explore kimchis made from radishes, cucumbers, etc.

Brine cabbage for 10 hours, focusing on softening the base of the cabbage. I like to do this overnight. In this recipe, we used 6 heads of Napa cabbage. Take off dirty leaves. Cut a few inches into cabbage base, then split in half with hands. Cut a few inches into the halves, crack the base of the cabbage open, but don’t split them. On smaller cabbages, skip this step. Sprinkle quality 천잉염 (natural coarse sea salt) salt into the base of the cabbage. If you need a faster brine, use more salt, but expect to rinse the cabbage leaves more later on. Arrange cabbages in a large bowl, so that the base of cabbage is slightly pointed downwards, allowing moisture and salt to collect at the base of the cabbage. Brine for 7-10 hours but ideally 10. Check that the cabbages have all been evenly softened. They should have halved in volume and the leaves should be pliable, all the way down to the base. If some cabbages were sitting atop others, they may be less softened. Rotate these to the bottom and allow them to brine a bit more. Rinse cabbages with water, removing excess salt. This step prevents overfermentation, so please don't skip it. After each rinse, taste a cabbage leaf. It should be salty, but not overbearingly so. If it's too salty to chew and eat, keep rinsing. Save the brine water for other pickles! Prepare other vegetables Scrub potatoes and remove bruised parts. Cut into halves or thirds and let sit in water. Boil until half of potatoes are completely boiled. Then, we're done with the potatoes remove them and reuse them for something else. In this recipe, we used 5 medium potatoes and about 2 quarts of water. Peel and slice onions. In this recipe, we used 3 medium onions. Julienne daikon radishes. In this recipe, we used 1.5 daikon radishes. Slice green onions and chives. In this recipe, we used 15 green onions. If you're making additional kimchi, slice those vegetables as well. We used 3 daikon radishes and chopped them into large pieces to slow the rate of fermentation. If we wanted them to ferment faster, we would've cut them into small cubes. You will want to salt these vegetables, since they weren't brined. Blend (or finely mince) vegetables for sauce This is the step where you get to be creative and express yourself, or work with what you have on hand. If you have fresh red Korean chili peppers, red bell peppers, these are great for adding fresh flavor and heat. In this recipe, we minced 5 Serrano peppers. Add 2-3 heads of garlic. In this recipe, we minced 2 heads of garlic. Add a few tablespoons of fermented shrimp paste, if you have it. Add a few tablespoons of fish sauce or oyster sauce to taste. Combine with potato water and blend. Add 1-2 cups of coarse 고춧가루, Korean dried chili flakes. Add paste to cabbage and pack cabbages into fermentation container. Add sauce in between each cabbage leaf, taking about 1-2 tablespoons of the sauce in your hand, smearing it from the top of the leaf, and depositing it in the base of the leaf. You don't need to overly sauce the leafy green part, since it will get plenty of time to marinate. Like the brining step, we're giving more attention to the cabbage base. Fold the cabbage in half and neatly pack into fermentation container. Remove air from fermentation container. Store in a cool, dark location. Minimize opening and closing this container to reduce the likelihood of contamination.

Note: If kimchi overferments it is still safe to eat. Cooking the kimchi can get rid of the overly sour flavor. you can stir-fry it for kimchi fried rice, put it in a kimchi stew, or fry it up in a kimchi pancake! We love Maangchi's recipes, because they are optimized for a Korean American audience who may not have access to traditional Korean ingredients. She also has a wonderful cookbook "Maangchi's Big Book of Korean Cooking", where she explains how to shop for Korean ingredients, as well as how to prepare and store them.

I remember when my parents first made this for me. My family was pretty poor when I was growing up so my parents would always try to repurpose something we already had into something else or something functional. My dad would insist on building everything, whether it was chairs or tables—at one point he even made a dog house when my sister and I insisted that we needed a dog. Whenever anything broke, he would always find a way to fix it or repurpose that thing into something else.

Kimbap was no exception. We would egg fry old kimbap and make this dish as a treat whenever it had been sitting in the fridge for too long. My mom would make this weekly so that we could eat kimbap we took from church on Sundays and eat it all week without feeling like we were eating the same meal. Not going to lie, sometimes I got sick because we let the kimbap sit in our fridge too long. But I loved it and it made up a big part of what I ate as a kid.

Nowadays, sometimes I go and get the 1+1 kimbap from H Mart at the end of the night so I can make this at home. It’s weird how something that represented poverty in my childhood is something I look back to in nostalgia

One of the best perks of having family who owns a Korean restaurant + my mom being the best cook 😉

Got spoiled with 보쌈, 우거지갈비탕, 육전, and Korean fried chicken this time 🤤

The 보쌈 was definitely my favorite. So tender and sooo good with the 무말랭이 ❤️
Nothing beats a table full of Korean food :)

I spent some time today making a variety of Jeon for our Charye and for my family to eat.

types of jeon:

​두부전 (Pan fried tofu)

​산적 (Skewered meat & vegetables)

​빈대떡 (Mung bean pancake)

​호박전 (Zucchini pancake)

​동그랑땡 (Meat pattie pancake)

​대구전 (Codfish pancake)

​부추전 (Chive pancakes)

​우엉전 (Burdock root pancake)

​버섯전 (Mushrooms pancake)

밤 steamed chestnuts, 감 persimmons, 인절미 rice cakes, and 쑥차 mugwort tea

I received these tteok (Korean rice cakes) today, and they’re so pretty I had to share. Soft, chewy, slightly sweet — they were perfect.

Breakfast: Cup Ramen and Triangle Kimbap

Lunch: Korean Beef Intestine Soup

Dinner: Grilled Pork Belly & Somac(Soju bomb)

She's 💯 latina