How to tell if your Kimchi is Weak

My Korean friends will get this. :)

#1. People only eat 1 piece of your kimchi at a meal. The proper response is eating piece after piece in an effort to try and stop the taste of the previous pieces by drowning it in the taste of a new piece.

#2. Your mother or grandmother tastes your kimchi and then writes you out of their will.

#3. Your mother-in-law complains about how you are not raising your children to be Truly Korean.

#4. Your mother or grandmother sends you a package of their strong kimchi.

#5. Your husband always looks nostalgic when he talks about his mother's kimchi.

#6. Your children don't really understand why they have to have kimchi with every meal and refuse to eat it. "It is mandatory! Now eat your weak punishment!" Children never protest strong kimchi. They already understand it is punishment designed to toughen them up.

#7. White people compliment you on how great your kimchi tastes.




Personal Note

I have been thinking of adding more recipes to this website in the future.

Today for instance I made cornmeal pancakes. They were extremely tasty - and I literally made the recipe up as I went... to prove that I still got it.

You see, I used to make pancakes regularly years ago and would experiment with a variety of different pancake recipes. I eventually got to the point that I could basically make pancakes without any recipe at all and just wing it... and it would still taste good.

However my girlfriend doesn't like it when I do that. She is one of those people who always follows the recipe. She doesn't know how to improvise or make it up as she goes.

Another example, a few days ago I made homemade chocolate ice cream. Normally the recipe calls for heavy cream.

However I know that cream is basically just 25% butter and 75% milk. So I simply made the ice cream using melted butter and milk instead.

And it tastes great.

But don't tell my girlfriend that. She might start worrying about how many calories are in the ice cream...

Now back to the topic of kimchi, I could potentially try making that. However I know from the anecdotal experience of friends that if you don't make your kimchi spicy enough, then you basically just wasted your time.

And unfortunately, many English versions of kimchi recipes reduce the amount of spiciness - which is to say, they ruined the recipe by making it less spicy.

I am therefore looking for a Korean Cooking Class in Toronto - where perhaps I would be able to someday learn how to make Kimchi properly - with the correct amount of spiciness.