Kimchi Jigae

This humble meal of Korean kimchi stew at Berkeley's Spoon is my recent afterwork favorite.  Kimchi being a fermented food is in various stages of ripeness and hence the stew or jigae made from it can only be slightly different each time. I prefer mine quite stinky, sour, and past the point of ripe but restauarants tend to serve them rather young. It takes much time and space  to have your kimchi ferment.

Now that I've adopted away our chickens, I could bury the urns full of kimchi in the back yard as my grandmother used to do. I rarely have kimchi at home as storing kimchi in your fridge ruins your house. Kimchi exudes a garlic odor so pungent no amount of cleansing will wipe away that happy smell.

Not much to report on the tea front.  My kettle chronicles however continue well into 2014. After I returned from Baja, I noticed my beloved electric kettle was missing and an unexpected box from Amazon it it's place.  We had let some dear friends stay during our absence and somehow someone had mistakenly(??!??) heated the plastic-bottomed kettle on a gas stove. I had never imagined such a sad end for a faithful contraption which heated a gallon of water daily for over 14 years.  I'm back to boiling water on the stove as no amount of research has turned up a worthy alternative.