making kimchi with mom

BB was confused about the newspapers and vegetables spread out all over the kitchen floor, but wanted to help anyway.

Quality control - inspecting each radish. thanks BB!

Separating the roots from the green tops, and reserving a small portion of the green stuff for the final product.

I scrubbed all the roots free of dirt and sliced them in halves, then quarters.

Mom pouring in the salt, which is what pickles the whole lot, obviously...

Letting it sit for a couple of hours.

Bonus shot of Maxie snuffling through the spinach we cleaned & cooked after preparing the kimchi.

I keep typing kimchi like "kimchee" which I guess is closer to how I pronounce it. I went to the Korean supermarket in Little Tokyo yesterday with my mom and she went crazy getting all sorts of veggies and fruit and seasonings while I gazed at the lobsters, halibut, octopi, abalones and sea cucumbers in the tanks by the butcher section. It's like going to the aquarium... in a sad, morbid way. I get sad thinking about the animals I eat, but their deliciousness eventually trumps my non-existent-activist/animal-loving heart so instead I silently thank the animals and sing praises to them through my belly. I ended up cooking all day with my mom - julienning carrots & ginger, peeling & crushing garlic, boiling & shocking spinach, bean sprouts, lots of sautéing and making sure there's enough rice to go with everything. Then I got caught up in working on something else so my mom finished off the seasoning of the kimchi, so I unfortunately did not get shots of that. But I think we'll be making more in the near future.