Kimchi and more

In between bouts of laundry and  The Hills reruns, I managed a thought of kimchi outage on our table for the past weeks (or has it been months?). We sure had our constant supply from my mother-in-law replenished every so often but the last time she returned our huge plastic container, it was not the cabbage kimchi I expected but radish or chonggak kimchi which I cannot stand! I love our regular cabbage or paechu  kimchi which I helped make for the first time last November along with my omonim's ajumma neighbors! That was my first daunting task as a dutiful daughter in law. :) And mind you, my MIL's kimchi is the best surpassing the restaurants' deliriously MSG filled goodness. Legend has it that my husband couldn't eat kimchi in his friends' houses when he was young.

I understood it's not kimchi making season yet so I opted to buy pre-packaged, over-priced cabbage kimchi from Lotte Mart. I definitely can never stand the chonggak kimchi's bitter taste and dreadful smell when taken out of the fridge. To date, we don't own a kimchi refrigerator as we're getting the stash from the mother ship (a.k.a. in-law's house and farm) along with other vegetables and rice. They live just about 5 minutes by car so it's almost just a trip down to my neighborhood sari-sari store! We're truly blessed to have in laws providing us with our basic needs as a newly-married couple. Btw, my neophyte tip to remedy the awful kimchi smell not to dominate your entire fridge or the kitchen for that matter is to cover the container first with plastic or saran wrap before putting on the lid.

So what takes me to this point is this news article I've read a few days back on Chinese cabbage price hike affecting Korea's staple food for next year. The culprit it says is the unusual weather conditions that we are experiencing. True enough, it's almost we're skipping fall season this year with unusually cool to cold temperatures come nightfall and early mornings.

Read full article on JoonAng Daily Cabbage crisis causes kimchi crunch. To quote "Even the Blue House has been hit. President Lee Myung-bak has switched from kimchi made from Chinese cabbages to European cabbages..."

Now, who knows the relation between Heidi and cabbages? kidding...lolz!