Making kimchi

This is the time of year when most people make kimchi. The harvest is all finished from the fall and of course (and unfortunately) winter is on its way. A few weeks ago, Dana and I met her mom near her garden and helped her bring all the vegetables she had grown back to her house. I had mentioned that I wanted to help make kimchi again this year (I did two years ago) and so her Mom said she'd let me help out. We met at her mom's house Monday morning and got the party started! Kimchi is made from all kinds of vegetables, but in this case we made it from radishes and cabbages. As I mentioned, her mom grew all of her own, but at the markets there are piles and piles or radish and cabbage. The steps are to make a pepper paste (which will be used to rub onto the radish and cabbage) first. It's made from all kinds of vegetables, I think some onions, parsley, etc. That added together with some pepper paste, sugar and water. The radish and cabbages had all been washed and cut up and prepared for their long kimchi journey. When we got to her mom's house, her mom and her aunts already had the pepper paste mix finished and spread out onto a big plastic sheet in the middle of the floor. I helped carry all the radish and cabbage out into the living room from the kitchen. The process is basically to rub the pepper paste onto each leaf of cabbage and then of course over time the flavor soaks all in. People usually put them into plastic containers and then put them into a kimchi refrigerator and eat it with pretty much every meal. It was lots of fun to help do this...of course not something every American living here gets to do. I love doing stuff like this that feels very authentic Korean. The closest thing I think from the States is like when Mom would can and pressure cook vegetables, or when Mom and Dad made their awesome apple juice.
With the 5 of us working together, it went quickly and we had a good time and ate kimchi as we made it. The picture of me is NOT STAGED and I really was actually working, not just posing for photo ops! :) HA! We made a combo of about 70 radishes and cabbages. After we finished Dana's mom cooked us a nice lunch and also gave me some kimchi to bring back home. It was lots of fun and everything was cool minus the pink rubber gloves. I hate pink and I hate the smell of rubber, but the smell washed off and there wasn't much I could do about the color! HA!

Anyway, here are some pictures and I hope everyone is having a great week.
Happy Thanksgiving to all my American family and friends...I hope everyone has a wonderful time with their loved ones. As much as I love Christmas, for some reason I always feel more homesick during Thanksgiving...maybe because I know we don't have that here, so it's almost like it's not happening here, even though I know everyone is together this week back home. I always loved Thanksgiving when I was a kid, usually going to Aunt Sharon's house and enjoying the wonderful turkey, biscuits, stuffing, potatoes, pies and even kool-aid, which was a special treat for us back then! HA! I remember sometimes I was so stuffed I almost couldn't even walk myself to the car. I love Thanksgiving and hope everyone has a great week!