Podcast appearances and mentions of hooni kim

This week, we're celebrating Lunar New Year with Sarah & Kaitlin Leung from the Woks of Life, Vietnamese icon Andrea Nguyen, & Korean chef Hooni Kim

This week, host Karen Han discusses the basics of great Korean food with chef Hooni Kim. In the interview, Hooni starts by explaining how one of his restaurants developed a meal-kit service at the start of the pandemic. Then he discusses his latest venture, the Little Banchan Shop, which will offer packaged Korean side dishes (called Banchan), marinated meats, and other items that customers can incorporate into their home cooked meals.  After the interview Karen and co-host Isaac Butler talk about the importance of trail and error in creative work. In the exclusive Slate Plus segment, Karen asks Hooni about his cookbook, My Korea: Traditional Flavors, Modern Recipes.  Send your questions about creativity and any other feedback to working@slate.com or give us a call at (304) 933-9675. Podcast production by Cameron Drews. If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get benefits like zero ads on any Slate podcast, bonus episodes of shows like Slow Burn and Big Mood, Little Mood—and you'll be supporting the work we do here on Working. Sign up now at slate.com/workingplus. -- Link to Atlassian Work Check Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, host Karen Han discusses the basics of great Korean food with chef Hooni Kim. In the interview, Hooni starts by explaining how one of his restaurants developed a meal-kit service at the start of the pandemic. Then he discusses his latest venture, the Little Banchan Shop, which will offer packaged Korean side dishes (called Banchan), marinated meats, and other items that customers can incorporate into their home cooked meals.  After the interview Karen and co-host Isaac Butler talk about the importance of trail and error in creative work. In the exclusive Slate Plus segment, Karen asks Hooni about his cookbook, My Korea: Traditional Flavors, Modern Recipes.  Send your questions about creativity and any other feedback to working@slate.com or give us a call at (304) 933-9675. Podcast production by Cameron Drews. If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get benefits like zero ads on any Slate podcast, bonus episodes of shows like Slow Burn and Big Mood, Little Mood—and you'll be supporting the work we do here on Working. Sign up now at slate.com/workingplus. -- Link to Atlassian Work Check Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, host Karen Han discusses the basics of great Korean food with chef Hooni Kim. In the interview, Hooni starts by explaining how one of his restaurants developed a meal-kit service at the start of the pandemic. Then he discusses his latest venture, the Little Banchan Shop, which will offer packaged Korean side dishes (called Banchan), marinated meats, and other items that customers can incorporate into their home cooked meals.  After the interview Karen and co-host Isaac Butler talk about the importance of trail and error in creative work. In the exclusive Slate Plus segment, Karen asks Hooni about his cookbook, My Korea: Traditional Flavors, Modern Recipes.  Send your questions about creativity and any other feedback to working@slate.com or give us a call at (304) 933-9675. Podcast production by Cameron Drews. If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get benefits like zero ads on any Slate podcast, bonus episodes of shows like Slow Burn and Big Mood, Little Mood—and you'll be supporting the work we do here on Working. Sign up now at slate.com/workingplus. -- Link to Atlassian Work Check Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, host Karen Han discusses the basics of great Korean food with chef Hooni Kim. In the interview, Hooni starts by explaining how one of his restaurants developed a meal-kit service at the start of the pandemic. Then he discusses his latest venture, the Little Banchan Shop, which will offer packaged Korean side dishes (called Banchan), marinated meats, and other items that customers can incorporate into their home cooked meals.  After the interview Karen and co-host Isaac Butler talk about the importance of trail and error in creative work. In the exclusive Slate Plus segment, Karen asks Hooni about his cookbook, My Korea: Traditional Flavors, Modern Recipes.  Send your questions about creativity and any other feedback to working@slate.com or give us a call at (304) 933-9675. Podcast production by Cameron Drews. If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get benefits like zero ads on any Slate podcast, bonus episodes of shows like Slow Burn and Big Mood, Little Mood—and you'll be supporting the work we do here on Working. Sign up now at slate.com/workingplus. -- Link to Atlassian Work Check Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, we interview Hooni Kim, the first Michelin-starred chef in Korean cuisine, who trained at Daniel and Masa before opening Danji and Hanjan. We ask Hooni the steps he took to get to the Michelin level, how he got started, and everything in between.

Hooni Kim explains many of the foundations of Korean cuisine (including gochujang), how to make perfect rice, what 135-year-old soy sauce tastes like and why he loves making fermented soybean stew. Plus, we hear the curious story behind America's most prolific fruit inventor; Bianca Bosker combs through her grandma's recipe cards; and we make one of France's easiest desserts.Get this week's recipe for Yogurt Loaf Cake with Coriander and Orange:https://www.177milkstreet.com/recipes/coriander-orange-yogurt-loaf-cake See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

If you have been listening to my show for awhile, you know there’s a question I ask all the people I interview, and that is “Who helped you to achieve your dream?"  I ask this question because we all know no one can succeed alone and achieve dreams alone.  Everybody, including all the incredibly successful people I’ve met, all had people who helped them to get to where they are now. Today I share with you the answers to this question, “Who helped you to achieve your dream?”  from some of the guests I’ve had on my show, Michael Kim, Dennis Hong, and Kara Goldin.  They each talk about different people and the roles they played in helping them to achieve their dreams. As you listen to these stories, I hope you will think about the people who have helped you, and also remember that no one succeeds alone.   I’m having my first Clubhouse room this Saturday February, 27th at 9pm ET with Chef Hooni Kim! https://tinyurl.com/4ytp49ed  Follow me on Clubhouse! My ID is @celinalee  Need an invitation for Clubhouse? Want to schedule a complimentary coaching session with me? Send me a message! https://celinalee.co/contact/ Wondering how my coaching can help you? Here is what my clients have said about their experiences of working with me.  https://celinalee.co/testimonial/ If you got any value or joy from my podcast, I would be grateful if you can share with friends and write me a review on Apple Podcast or Podchaser (https://www.podchaser.com/LiveYourDream). And please subscribe in your favorite podcast player!  Come say hi to me on LinkedIn! www.linkedin.com/in/celina-lee Any questions about coaching or thoughts about my podcast?  Send me a message! https://celinalee.co/contact/ Show Notes for This Episode  https://celinalee.co/episode47/  

This week on the CHEF Radio Podcast, host Eli Kulp talks to Chef Hooni Kim, owner of DANJI and HANJAN. He recently released his own cookbook called My Korea this past April. Eli and Hooni discuss how he became a renowned chef and an international cooking show icon, the distinct flavors and intricacies of Korean food, and his charity Yori Chunsa. Yori Chunsa, which means Chef Angels in Korean, connects Chefs with orphans to offer them training and connections to secure careers as line chefs. Learn more about Hooni Kim's work on his website, Hooni Kim.com

2020 Cookbook Year In Review with Becky Krystal Staff Writer for Voraciously at Washington Post FoodPhoto credit- Tom McCorkle for The Washington Post; styling by Marie Ostrosky for The Washington Post. Intro: Welcome to the number one cookbook podcast, Cookery by the book with Suzy Chase. She's just a home cook in New York City, sitting at her dining room table, talking to cookbook authors,Becky Krystal: I'm Becky Krystal, I'm a staff writer for Voraciously at Washington Post Food.Suzy Chase: So Becky it's been a year since we last chatted about cookbooks. And I swear, it feels like it's been 10 years.Becky Krystal: Yes!! I was going to say that, it doesn't feel like normal time.Suzy Chase: It doesn't! How has your year been?Becky Krystal: It's been interesting like everyone else's. Our office closed very early on, actually probably before a lot of other offices so we lost access to our food lab and our kitchen and everything else all of our thousands of cookbooks in mid-March and I've been home ever since cooking in my own kitchen testing in my own kitchen. We've had lots of logistical challenges with regard to photo shoots and I was sending and driving cookies around to everyone for our holiday package and for about six months, I had my three and a half year old home with me. So it's been a year - 21.Suzy Chase: What is one of the hardest things you had to conquer cooking in your own kitchen this year? It'll make us all feel better to hear it.Becky Krystal: I think just figuring out well there's a lot, I guess, but figuring out where to put everything actually has been really challenging because I was testing recipe and I recipes and I also have my own cooking supplies. I have the food I was cooking for my family. You know, sometimes I'd have meat marinating for work and other dishes in various states of preparation and my refrigerator and my freezer were just overflowing and I knew I was going to be doing a lot of baking for cookies so I bought 50 pound bags of flour so I have these massive industrial size buckets of flour, basically still sitting in my dining room. So, uh, space is a pretty big challenge, actually.Suzy Chase: You and the Voraciously team put together your favorite cookbooks of 2020. Can you read us the intro to the article?Becky Krystal: Sure. Like all of you, we’ve been at home for most of 2020, cooking more meals in our own kitchens than we ever expected to. Many of us have turned to familiar ingredients and recipes time and time again, when we just needed to get dinner on the table or couldn’t run out to the store. Thankfully, we’ve also had cookbooks to help us get out of the rut. They introduced us to new dishes, new people and new ways to “go somewhere” without actually leaving our homes. Great cookbooks do a lot of things. They inspire us. They make us think. In 2020, our favorite books were tasty and timely, providing us with satisfying meals and food for thought about underrepresented voices and cuisines, how to make do with what you have, and more. We think you’ll find these 12 cookbooks, each selected by a staffer, just as inspiring this year — and beyond.Suzy Chase: So each cookbook was handpicked by a staff member, which I love. And you can read the whole piece over on Voraciously.com. Could you take us through the process of putting this article together this year? What was the criteria you had to work with and who was included in this?Becky Krystal: Yeah, obviously it was a pretty different year this year. Usually we're in our office and we are getting cookbooks so many in hard copies that, I mean, we're literally tripping over them. So we had to obviously shift that because there's only so much we can pile up in our own houses. So we got as many digital copies as we could. We requested hard copies when we wanted to. And it was just, I mean, we had like a Dropbox file with tons and tons of cookbooks. Basically we asked whoever sent us, can you just send us a digital copy? So all year we were looking at cookbooks, we were cooking out of them. Um, my colleagues Ann Maloney and Joe Yonan, as well as myself, would sometimes feature recipes in our columns over the year and that sort of helped us get a jumpstart on what books we were most interested in. It was just a lot of looking over books. And we had a bunch of meetings where we talked about them and what caught our eye. And we were recommending books to each other and dishes to each other. And then we just sort of looked at our most promising ones and what really spoke to us and what we made dishes out of that we liked and was sort of representative of the diversity of what was out there. And that was kind of how we came around to our list.Suzy Chase: I found it was so hard to cook out of the digital copies this year.Becky Krystal: It's really hard to get as good of a feel for a book in a PDF, which is why when we found one that we thought was especially promising, we would go ahead and ask for a copy. I mean, I still don't really like propping my Kendall or my laptop or my phone up in the kitchen to cook with. So it was really nice when I did have books that I could either cook out of, or I even take my cookbooks down to my printer and scan the recipe and then just have the sheet in front of me. So yeah, it is different both in a tactile sense and just like almost emotional sense to not have tons of books in front of you.Suzy Chase: With the pandemic and some cookbooks being postponed or some canceled all together were you able to spot any cookbook trends this year?Becky Krystal: I think once we start talking about some of these books this'll get into it, but you know, there has been more, I think, of an emphasis and interest on spotlighting cuisines and voices we might not have heard about, or as much about things that have not received the attention they obviously deserve in the publishing industry and even in food media. So we get into all the different African cuisines and In Bibi's Kitchen and obviously even the Russian cuisine and Beyond The North Wind and Korean food in My Korea so I think that's really refreshing. There was still a lot of obviously chef driven books, but like some of those books I just talked about, there's also more, I think of an interest in regular people cooking, right? You know the recipes coming from the Bibi's, the recipes coming from the home cooks in Russia, that's obviously appealing to a lot of home cooks who maybe are intimidated or even put off by these really chefy books. Pie. There was a lot of pie this year, which I think is just wonderful. I love that. So that obviously jumped out to me and bread too, especially sourdough, you know, there were books, I think that were already in the works that just happened to coincide with this uptick of people doing sourdough for the first time myself included. Um, so we had New world Sourdough by Brian Ford. We had Living Bread by Daniel Leader and Lauren Chattman. So I think those are the things that jump out at me in terms of what we could sort of spot this year.Suzy Chase: Okay. So we're going to chat about five of the cookbooks on your list. First off is your personal pick One Tin Bakes by Edd Kimber. What drew you to this cookbook?Becky Krystal: Well, it's baking book and I am a passionate baker. It's definitely my strongest suit. I love the idea that as the title says, everything is made in a 9 by 13 pan, which is not the most glamorous pan it's, you know, the brownies and the blondies and in England, they talk about the tray bakes and stuff, homier things but Edd just had so many different ideas for how to use this one piece of equipment that is inexpensive and really versatile. I mean, I looked through and I wanted to make almost everything in there, which is always a good sign. And I felt like I could, the recipes are really approachable and extremely well-written, which I think is not always the case in cookbooks. And it's not the like sexiest thing to talk about, but a well-written recipe is just absolutely priceless and it's a beautiful book to look at Edd shot all the pictures so it really draws you in. And I just, I think it's lovely. It's not huge, which I also like, because I can feel overwhelmed when I sit down with a book that's like 200 recipes, but there are 70 and you think I could make a lot of these and everything I've made has turned out really great so far.Suzy Chase: Well, baking is not my strong suit. So I loved this cookbook because it seemed super accessible. It wasn't intimidating for me at all.Becky Krystal: Yeah, no, that's, that's definitely true. I mean, they're really, really easy kind of one bowl, couple of ingredient recipes. There are ones that if you feel confident in your skills, you can tackle those. You know, there are a couple of rolled cakes or the layer cakes that sort of stand on their side. So there's a spectrum, but most of it is really approachable even for, I would say beginning bakers really.Suzy Chase: It's funny cause we were talking about the term tin and I said, you know, here in the U.S. we say the word pan and he told me the story about how he actually pitched the title one pan bakes to the publisher. And they were like, um, no, the word pan does not sound nice in the title.Becky Krystal: Yeah. Well, it's also like, it sounds a little more savory almost, you know, there's a lot of talk here people love one pan meals and stuff like that so probably if I heard that, I guess even if you said one pan bakes, but there's something more lyrical about one tin bakes. I agree.Suzy Chase: And I made my very first Dutch Baby out of this cookbook. Did you make the Dutch Baby?Becky Krystal: I did. I actually highlighted it in my regular recipe column a couple of months ago. And it was super popular. I mean, it actually is one of our most popular baking recipes of the year. It's great. I did it with berries. I even tried it with apples. It's so fun and so easy. I thought it was such a delightful recipe.Suzy Chase: I'm going to make that on Christmas morning because it's so easy and it's kind of a showstopper.Becky Krystal: Yeah. You got to get the picture right after it gets out of the oven because it does tend to start to like collapse a little bit. So get your Instagram picture right when you pull it out.Suzy Chase: That's a really good tip now too In Bibi's Kitchen by Hawa Hassan with Julia Turshen. So I think this book is a real gem of 2020, because it fills the void in the cookbook market for African cookbooks. So who chose this cookbook on your staff and why did they choose it?Becky Krystal: Yeah, this was the pick of my colleague Olga Massov who's an assignment editor with us. She is a cookbook author and co-author in her own right so she knows a good cookbook once she sees one. I mean, she just raved about this book. It's an extremely practical book because that's the type of cooking that these women do. It's a lot of pantry ingredients. It's not very long ingredient lists. There aren't a lot of expensive ingredients because often these are people just cooking at home. And even in some parts of the world where these women are from or where they live, they can't access certain ingredients. Even in some places, meat is a rarity. So it's approachable also. I mean, I keep using that word, but it's true. Obviously also with the Black Lives Matter movement, it was incredibly timely to showcase these women who are in Africa or who have immigrated to other places. It was very human, right? Cause each chapter highlighting each of the eight countries has interviews with the women. It's not like, you know, one of these glossy lifestyle books, it teaches you about the cultures. Each intro also includes facts about the countries like their economy and the religion and language geography, stuff like that. It doesn't feel clinical though. It feels like you're just learning something. And it also fights this misunderstanding that African food is all the same. It gets lumped together a lot. And there are obviously differences and each of these countries deserves to be looked at on its own as opposed to, I mean, a massive continent, right? I mean, you would never dream of saying, Oh, European food, but that's what happens with African food.Suzy Chase: Totally. That was my biggest takeaway. Just the diversity of the food on the continent. And it's not a country. Like people think it's a country. It's not.Becky Krystal: I mean, how many more people are in Africa then all the other countries and other places combined I mean, it's unfortunate that it gets lumped together. And I think we all need to do better about making sure we highlight these different cultures and recipesSuzy Chase: Now to My Korea by Hooni Kim.Becky Krystal: Yeah. My Korea was actually the pick of our restaurant critic, Tom Sietsema. It's funny because Tom loves doing stuff like this because he is always, well, I was going to say dining out, he's doing mostly takeout these days. So he loves being able to dive into a book that he can cook at home. And he went shopping at H Mart and got ingredients. And he loved the fact that this is such a great book for people to get a better idea of Korean food. You know, it's not quite the same as Africa, but a lot of us, we think, okay, Korean barbecue, maybe some kimchi, whatever. And there's so much more to this cuisine. And it's just a beautiful book to, you know, Tom, it's a very visceral book. When you look at the photos, there are lots of little things you can start adding to your pantry to add flavors like, you know, the goguchang and the chili flakes and dried anchovies. And a lot of this frankly, is very appealing to me right now in this winter weather, you know, he's got stews and short ribs and dashi. I actually talked to him when I, we ran his bulgogi recipe in conjunction with the story and he said, I wanted to write a book to introduce people to Korean food and I think he succeeded incredibly well.Suzy Chase: I had him on the podcast in late April when we were like the epicenter of the pandemic. And it was a really hard time for him, but he was so smart because he pivoted with his two restaurants to do meal kits and my family and I have gotten his meal kit about almost every week. It has gotten us through this pandemic. It's so good and it's so much food!Becky Krystal: It's also really smart because especially now when so many of us are not doing a lot of grocery shopping, not everything is going to be available when you take your one little trip to the grocery store so if he's helping people get access to these ingredients and dishes, they might not otherwise be able to do in their streamlined kind of shopping then yeah that's a really great idea.Suzy Chase: This is my favorite kind of cookbook because it tells his personal story and then weaves in the recipes.Becky Krystal: Yeah, no, that's really refreshing. I mean, if you want someone to commit to reading and cooking out of your cookbook, I think there has to be some kind of relationship with the reader. I think at least I personally enjoy that voice of the author and learning something about them and why this matters to them. I think it makes you want to invest in it more too.Suzy Chase: We love Hooni.Becky Krystal: Yeah. He's, he's great. I learned a lot from him just inspeaking to him, you know, about his, his recipes.Suzy Chase: Totally, I had him on again in September because I wanted to get an update and he's just so wonderful to chat with.Becky Krystal: Yea he is.Suzy Chase: So next is Beyond The North Wind by Darra Goldstein.Speaker 2: Yeah. This was the pick of Tim Carman who's one of my fellow staff writers. It's such a beautiful book to look at and to read. And like I said, there is a lot that I think people don't know about Russian cuisine and like some of the other books too, the recipes often don't have a ton of ingredients they're usually pretty accessible. You know, not a ton of us around here have access to buckthorn, which is like one of her favorite things to call for but she makes a point of saying like, okay, if you don't have like the horseradish leaves or currant leaves it'll be okay. And one of the things Tim pointed out and something that she sort of alludes to in the book is that, you know, how long, like Rene Redzepi has been teaching everyone about fermenting and foraging and stuff and that sort of caught our attention. People in these places in Russia have been doing stuff like this for a long time, fermenting things and kombucha and all this stuff and I think that's probably not something many people know about and you know, it's just the classic making do with what you have nd that's what these people have been doing for hundreds of years, especially in these places that are very far North.Suzy Chase: My two takeaways from this cookbook, um, were Russians love the taste of sour and they also love honey. I made her honey cake.Becky Krystal: Yeah. Honey cake is also think maybe having a little bit of a moment, you know, there was the Baking At The 20th Century Cafe book, which also had like a really famous honey cake recipe. I mean, I think that's incredibly timely. They've been doing honey using honey for, you know, hundreds of years. And, and I get questions from readers who don't want to use refined sugar and I feel like I should just refer them to a lot of the recipes in here because before they had access to the beet sugar and stuff, they were cooking with honey and it's trendy for some people, but not for these people who it's their tradition.Suzy Chase: This cookbook is almost like a trip to Russia. Her photos are extraordinary.Becky Krystal: Yeah. Actually I was reading it last night and it was called and I was under my blankets and I felt like this feels very appropriate and I could almost see, you know, the Northern lights and the snow. And you know, it's the same with My Korea also and In Bibi's Kitchen, I mean the photography itself also is really important to setting the mood and helping you feel like you're really going somewhereSuzy Chase: The last cookbook we're going to chat about as Modern Comfort Food. I mean, God love Ina for pushing up this publication of the cookbooks so we could all have it mid pandemic.Becky Krystal: So Modern Comfort Food was the pick of Mary Beth Albright, who is our food video guru. And I mean, it's delivers on what it promises, right? It's nothing in the right way. It's nothing that you're like, Oh, I've never heard of that. Right. I mean, she says, she likes to find the things that appeal to us and puts her twist on them. So yeah, tomato soup and grilled cheese. She's got a shrimp and linguine fra diavolo. She uses that same spicy sauce to do the spaghetti squash bake, which I've really been wanting to do since I have one from my farm box, it's friendly and it's not intimidating. And I think for those people who are turned off by extremely novel things or people who are just devotees of Ina, they're not going to be disappointed in this book.Suzy Chase: She's just so real. Like in the cookbook, she wrote about the evolution of a recipe with her Boston Cream Pie that she'd been trying to perfect for years. And I was like, you know, she didn't have to tell us that she's been like struggling to perfect this for years. So I was so thrilled to read that story, how she was chatting with Christina Tosi and she suggested something like a syrupy glaze that you brush on the cake to give it lots of flavor and it also keeps it moist. And so I love that story and how real Ina is.Becky Krystal: Yeah. I mean, we've all been there. Like, there's just this thing that's bugging us and we're trying to master a recipe. And so yeah, I found that very relatable and I found the idea of an orange scented cake and pastry cream in Boston Cream Pie, just, I mean, yeah, 10 out of 10 we'll eat.Suzy Chase: So I had on Trent Pheifer and he has his Instagram and blog called Store Bought Is Fine and he's cooking his way through all of Ina's recipes. Are you familiar with him?Becky Krystal: I am not actually. I think I need to, I know but yeah, it's like he's pulling a Julie & Julia thing, but with Ina which sounds really fun.Suzy Chase: Exactly. Oh my gosh, you have to follow him on Instagram. He's amazing. And he was so much fun to talk with. So what are you looking forward to eating in the new year and what cookbooks are you looking forward to in 2021?Becky Krystal: I am looking forward to eating anything that I don't cook. Um, I've been doing, you know, we've been doing takeout, but, uh, I definitely miss eating what my colleagues make for me. Um, I sometimes will get things that they drop off or if I take home from a photo shoot, but I definitely miss that. And yeah, sitting in a restaurant meal, definitely. Cookbooks. Obviously my list is a little baking heavy because I love baking. Uh, so the things that jump out to me there, Roxanna Jullapat who contributed one of the cookies to our holiday cookie issues has a book called Mother Grains coming out. A lot of whole grains. We previewed a recipe from there, with Linzer cookies that are made with corn flour and we're really excited about that one. The Cookie Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum, who I know you've talked to I think. I mean, of course that's going to be good. Zoë Bakes Cakes by Zoë François who is someone who I absolutely adore. She's great on Instagram and I swear by her. Artisan Bread In Five Minutes A Day that she's done with Jeffrey Hertzberg, To Asia With Love by Hetty McKinnon, who also contributed a cookie to our package. She's great. I mean, she's one of those people who also seems to be always churning out books and recipes, and they're all interesting I mean, I just, and people are always making her recipes. I'm really excited about that one. Life Is What You Bake It by Vallery Lomas who is also really fun baker and she was a previous winner of The Great American Baking Show. Got a shout out to Dorie Greenspan who I know, and also just absolutely adore Baking With Dorie Sweet Salty & Simple, sort of more on the savory side. Julia Turshen who we talked about with In Bibi's Kitchen and she has a book coming out Simply Julia 110 Easy Recipes For Healthy Comfort Food. And then one of my other favorite people, Patty Jinich has another book coming out, Patty Jinich Treasures Of The Mexican Table Classic Recipes Local Secrets. I think that also has the potential to do a lot of what we've talked about with these other books in terms of introducing people to different ideas and sort of more home cooking. So those are some of the things I'm really jazzed about for 2021.Suzy Chase: For me, in 2021, I'm looking forward to eating a chef cooked meal inside a restaurant, not on the street or take out and I'm eagerly awaiting Water, Wood, and Wild Things, Learning Craft and Cultivation in a Japanese Mountain town by Hannah Kirshner. I can not wait for that. So head on over to Voraciously.com to check out all 12 of their favorite cookbooks of 2020, and thanks so much, Becky for coming on Cookery by the Book podcast.Becky Krystal: Thanks Suzy. Let's do it again next year!Outro: Subscribe over on CookerybytheBook.com and thanks for listening to the number one cookbook podcast, Cookery by the Book.

My KoreaBy Hooni Kim Intro: Welcome to the number one cookbook podcast, Cookery by the Book with Suzy Chase. She's just a home cook in New York City sitting at her dining room table. My name is Hooni Kim, and I'm back with Suzy to talk about my life, my restaurants especially my new book, my career, and anything else that has to do with running a food business, right?Suzy Chase: “You caught me at a tumultuous time.” That's what you said to me. When we chatted on April 4th. Now it's five months later. How are you doing?Hooni Kim: I'm healthy. My family's healthy, which means that we're doing okay. But it's, it's still it's been tumultuous for the past six months. So I guess we're used to it while. I'm used to it, but it's still not, we're still not doing well.Suzy Chase: So talk about your restaurants a little bit. So you have, for people who don't know, you have Danji right in the middle of the theater district, and you have Hanjan in the Flatiron District, how are they faring?Hooni Kim: Most restaurants I know, most chefs I know are really losing money. Meaning they're putting in every week dipping into their savings to meet payroll, to meet rent. Fortunately for me, I have two restaurants and one of them Danji, we're only doing outdoor seating outdoor dining, which we have five tables and the revenue that we're generating is about 15% of what we were doing before April. So that's not good, but fortunately I started the meal kit business or service at Hanjan my other restaurant a week before we were closed. So this next week is our 26th week of delivering weekly meal kits to many of the families in the tristate area. Wow. Yeah. And you being one of them as well. And that does generate enough revenue to make up for all of Hanjan's costs as well as makeup for almost everything that Danji is short on.Hooni Kim: So fortunately, most weeks I don't have to put in money from my savings, but this past week we did because Labor Day, week and a lot of New Yorkers leaving for vacation, visiting relatives and nobody coming in, which is very difficult for New York because we know that during the summers and holidays, a lot of New York leave the city, but we do expect a lot coming in and sometimes even more coming in than leaving during Christmas and New Years. But since the pandemic it's always people leaving or, and nobody coming in. So it's tough.Suzy Chase: You started off by selling 10 of your meal kits on the first day. How many are you selling now?Hooni Kim: Well, we go by weekly and I think the first week we sold 40 and every week we kept selling more. And by after a month we were selling out at 160 meal kits a week and we had to cap it at that because back then I delivered by myself and I couldn't deliver more than 160 in a week. And we were doing that for a while until the school's closed. And then all of my clients sort of, well, I wouldn't say all of them, but a lot of them decided to leave the city because they didn't need to be here, no school, no work. And we were hovering around during the summer 80 to a hundred past couple of weeks in a little bit less. Most of our clients are repeat customers. And hence we changed the menu every week.Suzy Chase: Well, I don't know how much feedback you get, but I have to tell you that these meal kits have been the bright spot for us during quarantine. And I'm honestly going to cry if I talk too much about it, but having your meal kit come on Fridays was like the one thing my family could look forward to in the middle of the pandemic when we were like on lockdown in our tiny apartment. I mean we can't thank you enough.Hooni Kim: Thank you so much, I still remember dropping off the food on the stairs. Yeah. When I was in New York, I'm in Korea right now. You know, I been in Korea for the past month. We're experiencing in Korea, a little bit of a boost in the infections. And it's not just me. I think a lot of chefs that I know we're trying to find ways to to make ends meet. Now. I haven't gotten a paycheck since March, so I have to look beyond my normal resources, my usual regular resources. So I have an opportunity to come to Korea to do a TV show. So I jumped at it.Suzy Chase: Oh gosh. So what kind of a TV show?Hooni Kim: It's like a Top Chef.Suzy Chase: Oh, that's awesome.Hooni Kim: A cooking contest. I'm a judge and the contestants are foreign chefs, chefs from Italy, Vietnam, Thailand, China, all over the world who most of them own restaurants in Korea and they're competing to win a hundred thousand dollars. So it's a, it's a regular paycheck for me, a weekly paycheck, which I haven't had since I had my restaurants. So for four months, I have to do this to make sure that I can pay my mortgage and buy my son some clothes for school.Suzy Chase: I want to get back to the meal kit because I want to hear what your favorite dish is in the meal kit. And I want to tell you what our favorite dishes are in the meal kit.Hooni Kim: So I like spicy food. I like food that have an impact on your palate right away. So right before I left, I made this spicy cold noodle. I don't know if you remember, orSuzy Chase: Yeah, that's my husband's favorite!Hooni Kim: Okay. This noodle is spicy. It's tangy. It's sweet, it's salty. It has all of these different tastes that whatever you're into it'll have. So that was one of the dishes that I was excited to put on the menu. Right before I left.Suzy Chase: The Spicy Noodles is on page 246 in the cookbook.Hooni Kim: Of my book. Yeah.Suzy Chase : If you're going to buy the book, if you already have the book, you can find that on 246. Now my favorite is I need a drum roll. Your hot wings!Hooni Kim: Oh, which one? Because we have several that we, is it the goopy one with the red sauce,Suzy Chase: Yes, it was the thick, sticky, hot. It hits you. And then it's sweet. It was like super duper sticky. I think you offered it maybe twice and then it didn't come back.Hooni Kim: I think you're right. We had it on just twice, two or three times. It's tough when we have just one menu, because we first started this meal kit when a lot of my customers couldn't come to the restaurant because they had to stay home with the kids. So a lot of the menu items we couldn't do really spicy or really bold. We sort of had to think about the kids who the meal kit was feeding, but we were able to sort of put in the spicy dishes once in a while. And then we get complaints like, my four year old can't eat spicy food. So it was on and off, but now it's different. Now. I think my clientele has changed even, just because the families with the children have left the city. And I hope they come back next week with the wings that you like, they will come back. I think next week it's on the menu, not the kimchi menu the week after. So yeah.Suzy Chase: Well it made me laugh because on one of the menus, it was like, these wings are not for children or something like that.Hooni Kim: Yeah. anything that's red is spicy in Korean food. We don't use ketchup. We don't use tomatoes. So anything that's red is red hot peppers. Whether it be in pepper flakes or Gochujang, which is a pepper paste. I sometimes forget that some people might not notice that, you know, after the complaints, we decided to put it in writing certain dishes don't feed your kids.Suzy Chase: And you can find that recipe on pages 296, 297 and 298.Hooni Kim: Yeah. That's a Danji spicy wing recipe that is actually served at Danji right now with our outdoor dining.Suzy Chase: We'll have to go up there. I'm going to bring napkins with me.Hooni Kim: It is so much better when it's straight out of the fryer and the sauce is sort of just put on. There is that textural sort of a goopy sauce and a crispy wing that makes it just besides being delicious. It's just fun to eat. When you have that textural change. A contrast.Suzy Chase: So, our 14 year olds favorite dish was the radish and beef soup. And it's on page one 94 in the cookbook. Can you describe it?Hooni Kim: It's funny that your son likes that. Cause my son, who's 11, that's his favorite breakfast dish. It's a soothing, comfortable dish that you can eat a lot of because it's not spicy. It's not really peppery. It's not really too salty either. And you can have it with rice. It will hydrate you in the morning. Yeah, it's my son's favorite. And it's explaining it to your son's favorite too,Suzy Chase: But, but I just have to say everything in the meal kit is amazing. There was nothing we didn't like everyone in New York needs to order it.Hooni Kim: Thank you. Thank you so much. You know, it's tough because my staff, we were not used to making 160 portions of anything. At the same time, we became a, almost a banquet kitchen where we never done banquet style food. We always made one or two servings a la minute when people order it and it took us a couple of weeks to learn how to do it the right way. But we're, we're, we're pretty comfortable now. So all of my cooks myself we're very technically, I think there, when it comes to making these meal kits.Suzy Chase: I got so excited when I saw that article come out and made, it said kimchi could make it difficult for the coronavirus to penetrate the body. Did you see that article?Hooni Kim: I didn't read the whole article because it's something that I believe from a long time ago. It's something that I posted even in April or healthy gut biome is so critical in your immune system. So I made that connection a while back when there's an article about kimchi or any kind of probiotic dishes helping to fight off bacterial and viral diseases. It's, you know, something Koreans have known for a long time.Suzy Chase: So does going back to Korea as an adult make you feel like you're a kid again?Hooni Kim: I used to come to Korea for vacation, for fun to eat. I did have more of a connection to my past. I saw relatives. I visited my father's grave on his homeland Soando, but this time not so much, I don't travel. I won't dare to try to visit my father's islands, Soando just because it's not safe. The restaurants in Korea are all closed by 9:00 PM. As far as I know, schools are still closed. You know, this world has changed. You know, my trips to Korea was something that I always look forward to. And when I was here every minute that I was stuck in my hotel room, I felt like I was missing out on another meal or visiting another city. But now it's serious. So I'm just being very carefulSuzy Chase: On a lighter note this week in your heat and serve meal kit you are offering for the first time, I think your 120 day kimchi stew. Tell us about that.Hooni Kim: Second time. Because first time we offered it was I think when we first started, yeah, it's, it's a very deep, deep, acidic kimchi flavor. And when it's over two, three months, when it's 120 days, I don't like to eat it just straight or I wouldn't say raw, but just the kimchi as a banchan, as a cold dish I feel better cooking it because the flavors are just so bold. So strong. I do feel like I need to balance it out with, in this case, pork fat and and anchovy broth and some tofu to make it not so bold. Yeah. It's, it's delicious. And I consider it medicine, but yeah, I'm excited to be able to offer it again after what is it four months now? Since the last time we offered it? Well, that's how long it took for us to 120 days. Yeah.Suzy Chase: So the season on the podcast, I have a segment called Last Night's Dinner. What did you eat for dinner last night?Hooni Kim: You know, the same thing I've been having for the past three weeks, I don't go out to dinner. So in my hotel there is a Dosirak system. Dosirak means like a little bento box where they give you a balanced meal. And for me, because I have a gluten sensitivity, basically it's a vegetable ragu with French fries and a salad and some cheese for dessert. Yeah. It's not exciting. It's not something that I want to brag about. It's not Korean, but I'm just glad that they're giving me something because I am not able to venture out to restaurants because I am here to do a job and I cannot risk, not just myself, but my entire, you know, the staff that we're working with and the entire show, if something horrible happens to me. So I'm just doing another quarantine by myself, in my hotel in Seoul.Suzy Chase: Where can we find you on the web and social media?Hooni Kim: You can find everything about my book, my restaurants at HooniKim.com. But I think I am the most active on my Instagram, which is Hooni Kim as well and I think next week is when the restrictions will ease up a little bit and I would start venturing out to as many restaurants as possible. So you know, my, my feed gets a little bit more exciting next week and I hope you can join me.Suzy Chase : I will close with a quote that you translated on your Instagram and it goes, "effort will never betray you, the truth reveals itself through flavor." Thank you so much. Hooni for coming back on Cookery by the Book podcast.Hooni Kim: Thank you so much for having me again, Suzy.Outro: Subscribe over on CookerybytheBook.com and thanks for listening to the number one cookbook podcast, Cookery by the Book.

This week….welcome to Well-FED! Haha! Based on a listener suggestion, we’re discussing and cooking from some cookbooks we enjoy, along with our special guest, Halle’s boyfriend Jeremy! Plus what we’re reading this week. Books and other media mentioned in this episode: Episode 74 – Our Favorite Bookish Places Ann’s picks: Zahav: A World of Israeli Cooking by Michael Solomonov and Steven Cook (buy from Bookshop)– Jerusalem by Yottom Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi (buy from Bookshop)– Zahav (restaurant) Chinese Soul Food: A Friendly Guide for Homemade Dumplings, Stir-Fries, Soups, and More by Hsiao-Ching Chou (buy from Bookshop)– @madhungry on Instagram– Martha Stewart Living– The Food of Sichuan by Fuchsia Dunlop (buy from Bookshop) Bravetart: Iconic American Desserts by Stella Parks (buy from Bookshop)– Bravetart (blog)– Serious Eats– The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science by J. Kenji López-Alt (buy from Bookshop)– @bravetart on Instagram Halle and Jeremy’s picks: Meals, Music, and Muses: Recipes From My African American Kitchen by Alexander Smalls (buy from Bookshop)– Minton’s Playhouse (restaurant) My Korea: Traditional Flavors, Modern Recipes by Hooni Kim (buy from Bookshop)– Daniel (restaurant)– Masa (restaurant)– Danji (restaurant)– Hanjan (restaurant) A Blissful Feast: Culinary Adventures in Italy’s Piedmont, Maremma, and Le Marche by Teresa Lust (buy from Bookshop)– The Great British Bakeoff (TV)– Marcella Hazan’s Tomato Sauce What We’re Reading This Week: Ann: Evelina by Frances Burney (buy from Bookshop)– Jane Austen books Halle: The Comeback by Ella Berman (buy from Bookshop)– Jennifer Lawrence filmography– Darren Aronofsky filmography Well-Read on FacebookWell-Read on TwitterWell-Read on BookshopWell-Read on Instagram

This week on Inside Julia’s Kitchen we’re celebrating what would have been Julia’s 108th birthday by sharing a few of our favorite Julia Moments from season eight guests Sara Moulton, Hooni Kim, David Lebovitz, Melissa Clark and Leah Penniman. Their words showcase Julia’s legacy, as well as her enduring ability to teach and inspire us all, and are particularly meaningful as we navigate the Covid-19 pandemic. Heritage Radio Network is a listener supported nonprofit podcast network. Support Inside Julia's Kitchen by becoming a member!Inside Julia's Kitchen is Powered by Simplecast.

This week on Inside Julia’s Kitchen, host Todd Schulkin talks to Hooni Kim, chef of NYC’s Danji and Hanjan, and author of the new cookbook, My Korea. Todd and Hooni discuss making authentic Korean food in America and the impact of Covid-19 on his restaurants. Plus, Hooni shares his Julia Moment.Image courtesy of Kristin Teig.In March, HRN began producing all of our 35 weekly shows from our homes all around the country. It was hard work stepping away from our little recording studio, but we know that you rely on HRN to share resources and important stories from the world of food each week. It’s been a tough year for all of us, but right now HRN is asking for your help. Every dollar that listeners give to HRN provides essential support to keep our mics on. We've got some fresh new thank you gifts available, like our limited edition bandanas.Keep Inside Julia's Kitchen on the air: become an HRN Member today! Go to heritageradionetwork.org/donate. Inside Julia's Kitchen is powered by Simplecast.

April 30, 2020 - A chef known for defining Korean food in America brings a powerful culinary legacy into your kitchen. Hooni Kim, chef/owner of Danji and Hanjan, will discuss his eagerly-anticipated cookbook, My Korea: Traditional Flavors, Modern Recipes, his insight and deep knowledge on Korean cuisine, and the challenges he faces as a restaurateur in New York City during the COVID-19 pandemic. Moderated by Andrew Friedman. For more information, please visit the link below: https://www.koreasociety.org/arts-culture/item/1377-chef-hooni-kim-with-andrew-friedman

Cathy dials up Hooni Kim, chef-owner of Danji, a Korean tapas restaurant in Midtown Manhattan, to talk about his new cookbook, My Korea: Traditional Flavors, Modern Recipes. Hooni shares the state of business right now due to COVID-19 and discusses the possible future of the restaurant industry, as well as his own unique perspective on Korean cooking.Eat Your Words is powered by Simplecast.

My Korea: Traditional Flavors, Modern RecipesBy Hooni Kimwith Aki Kamozawa Intro: Welcome to the number one cookbook podcast, Cookery By The Book with Suzy Chase. She's just a home cook in New York City, sitting at her dining room table talking to cookbook authors.Hooni Kim: Hi, my name is Hooni Kim and I have just written My Korea: Traditional Flavors, Modern Recipes.Suzy Chase: As a Korean chef, you're constantly thinking about Korean food and its place in American culinary culture. You have two restaurants here in the city, Danji and Hanjan. Danji received a Michelin star in 2011 and 2012. The first ever Korean restaurant to receive a Michelin star. That is extraordinary.Hooni Kim: Oh, thank you.Suzy Chase: So, now here we sit in the epicenter of the pandemic and life's been turned upside down. We have a broad sense of what's happening in the restaurant industry, but it would be so great to hear how you and your two restaurants are dealing with the Coronavirus situation.Hooni Kim: You have caught me at a very sort of tumultuous time, not just me, but all the chef friends that I know and all the restaurant owners. I think we are now three weeks in. I think next week is the fourth week of this situation. I will let you know that Danji, which was the restaurant that you were talking about receiving the first Michelin star for a Korean restaurant is right in the middle of the Theater District and we closed as soon as the theaters closed, which was two days before the city mandate that all restaurants had to close for in dining. So Danji hasn't been open for a month now. Fortunately my other restaurant, Hanjan, we were able to pool our resources, my chefs, people on salary that who have been with me for eight ... my manager at Danji's over nine years.Hooni Kim: We understood that ordering food to go was going to be very common, but I personally and a lot of my friends didn't want to order a big meal every single day, two, three times a day to go out and eat. So what we did was figure out a bunch of Korean dishes that held well in the refrigerator and the freezer and we sort of made a meal kit for a family of four that could last two, three meals. And we decided to sort of sell that. And I would do all the deliveries myself. I still do. And we started that right away, even before the restaurants closed because we knew this was going to happen. And I think the first day we sold 10 and we were very proud. We were so happy that week we ended up selling about 80. I had to hire more staff to cook more because the following week we sold 100. Last week we sold 130 and we finally figured out that I can only deliver 30 a day and that's the maximum that I could personally deliver. So this next week we are capping it at 150 and we have just sold out yesterday of this entire week.Suzy Chase: Oh no, I was going to order.Hooni Kim: Well, no, I got your email yesterday so you're in it. And I didn't reply because I hadn't replied to anybody else. But yes, you're on the list. And we did sell out yesterday. Yeah.Suzy Chase: That is awesome.Hooni Kim: Thank you. I mean it was my mother and my manager, they suggested it. I thought it was a great idea and when we started it was just four people. Now we have eight people working at the restaurant. So we have staff that's making money in this situation. And that's I think the biggest sort of pride that I have.Suzy Chase: You know, it's almost like your version of home food or what do they call it in Korean, Jip BapHooni Kim: Jip Bap yeah.Suzy Chase: It's kind of for your version of that.Hooni Kim: Yes. You know, a lot of Korean food the traditional kind sits well in the fridge. All the banchans are meant to sort of, you make it once and you eat for a week. Kimchis can last months and years. Even the stews, they taste better the second day. So, it's more delicious when I make it and then deliver it later in the night and they eat it then or the next day it actually tastes better because the flavor set more, they settle more, they meld more, the soy sauce, any sort of fermented soy, soybeans, those sauces develop more through time after it's cooked. Every week we change our menu and I study the dishes that might hold better or even become better once the food is delivered. So, that's been interesting. But that's sort of what we're going for. The real traditional Korean foods that Koreans consider [foreign language 00:05:07] that can hold well in a fridge and a family can enjoy for two, three days. That's the whole point.Suzy Chase: So what's the best way we as a consumer can help you and other restaurant stay afloat?Hooni Kim: You know, I don't know. A lot of restaurants are selling gift certificates now and they're not free because we sell too much of it now and we spend that money later on. Our revenue's going to fall because of those gift certificates. It's a very short term sort of fixed. But I don't know if that's really going to help us in the long run. I'm also not comfortable asking for handouts. You know, I think a lot of restaurants are asking for freebies, but I just don't feel comfortable.Hooni Kim: I just feel like nothing is free in this world and I've never taken a handout ever running my restaurants and making sure my staff is paid fairly. And it just takes a lot for me to go that route. The reason why I decided to do these deliveries and the reason why I personally do the deliveries is because I want this to grow so that I can hire all my staff back even if they're not making as much money as they did before we'll get there. As long as my restaurants reopen, I can hire all of them back and with time they will get to where they were before. And that is my goal. But asking my customers who have enjoyed supporting us this whole time for a freebie, for me, I'm just a little uncomfortable.Hooni Kim: So to answer the question, how can you help us? I think the best way to help us really is as soon as our restaurants are ready to open for you to come flooding back. I'm sure many people are sick and tired of ordering delivery food or even cooking at home and are just itching and wanting to go out to restaurants, which we took for such granted going to a bar and sitting down ordering a beer. Wow, that sounds so good now.Suzy Chase: There's a picture in the cookbook of, I think it's Hanjan, it's your other restaurant that's like a pub and I was just staring at it. All the people were just sitting right next to each other drinking, eating. It felt like a lifetime ago when we were all doing that.Hooni Kim: And that's what worries the most. Most restaurants in New York City are built to sort of crowd people in. Right now, that's very uncomfortable and for a restaurant to function even after we open at 50% of capacity because that's sort of the physically safe thing to do, we're not built for that. We will fail. We will fail within two weeks if we don't get very close to the numbers that we were doing because we were making 5% margins anyway. If we get a 20% drop in revenue, we're done.Hooni Kim: That is what worries me the most. This culture of staying away, being apart, the social distancing, if that carries over to the restaurants we're done, unless you're a very fine dining restaurant that charges $300, $400 per person who can sort of afford to social distance tables. 90% of New York City restaurants aren't designed that way. We are designed to pack people in because real estate is very expensive, not just real estate. Everything is very expensive here and even with that, our budgets being 5% at most, 10% I'm just very afraid that we might not go back to ... or it will take a lot of time to go back to where we were a month ago.Suzy Chase: Well, I know we're all rooting for you and we're here to support you any way we can.Hooni Kim: Thank you very much.Suzy Chase: So now moving onto the cookbook.Hooni Kim: Wow, that was depressing, huh? I'm sorry.Suzy Chase: To happier times. Your cookbook, My Korea, is deeply personal and heavily researched. And when I say heavily, I mean it took you seven years to write. Why so long?Hooni Kim: To be perfectly honest, when I was first approached to write this cookbook, I had just opened on Danji, it was my first year. Basically what they said was my menu just read like the chapters. So I thought that's one of the things that when you become a chef, you do. You write a cookbook. So I said, "Sure." Little did I know that I didn't have the story to share. The story that I shared, everything was at Danji. A lot of the things you couldn't put into words. So the story of Danji, a story of me, wasn't a good book. And my first editor pointed that out. You know, we all have writers because we just don't have the time or the skills to write a book. I am not a very good writer or I wasn't. I'm much better now.Hooni Kim: I'm still not a good writer, but much better than when I first started. And I thought the process would be, I tell stories and the writer writes it. Not the best way. So by the third time, my first two manuscripts were rejected. They weren't good enough for my editor. The third time, I wrote it myself and my writer basically fixed what I wrote, grammatically, helped me write all the recipes because I am used to describing how to cook to my cooks, not to home cooks. So fixed a lot of the recipe lingo and having to write this myself just changed what I wrote. Instead of sort of sharing my stories, I first had to sort of look within and find what is my story. And that's why I went really back to my first memories of liking food. And to be honest, I had forgotten a lot of the stories that I write about when I was a kid.Hooni Kim: It wasn't a part of my first two manuscripts. When I started writing the book, memories from 35 years ago, 40 years ago, came alive again. Yeah, I mean, starts right with the intro. I go way back from my first memory of food, which was in the island of Soando and Busan, eating the rice cakes off the street and that is my first memory of food and that's where we start.Suzy Chase: Do you think you can credit Maria Guarnaschelli with tapping into something inside of you to really dig deep and get these memories?Hooni Kim: Completely? Maria Guarnaschelli wasn't able to finish the book because she retired right before we were able to go into print, but she would not let me, allow me to publish my first two versions, which I thought they were good books, but so relatively lesser than what I was able to write when I wrote it. And it's not even the difference of writers because the second manuscript, I have the same writer as this manuscript or this book, the published book. So it wasn't the writer, it really was just me sitting down and looking within and trying to remember why I started cooking, how, and I would've missed all that out if Maria Guarnaschelli would have just went ahead and published a decent book, but not the best book that I could write. So I still thank her.Suzy Chase: Speaking of food memories, can you tell us about your first taste memory with Korean street food?Hooni Kim: Yes. It was in Busan. I must've been four years old and this was when I had come back to Korea to see my maternal grandmother living in Busan. My cousins are all older than me and they were used to the Korean street food. They didn't think that I would like spicy food, so they would let me partake. But one day they let me and, and it was spicy rice cakes, tteokbokki. And at that time for one penny, you got a toothpick.Hooni Kim: And with that toothpick you had to choose because it was rice cake and fish cake that you could pick one. And I remember taking the rice cake because it was called rice cake. So I thought the rice cake must be better. Tried it and the flavors just exploded in my mouth. It was uncomfortable. Too much flavor for a four year old. It was spicy, salty, sweet, and the gooey, soft texture almost just melting in your mouth and ... it's the first time I had rice cakes. It was actually the first time that I had something spicy that I really enjoyed. You know, that was my introduction to a Korean street food 44 years ago.Suzy Chase: And I think it was a lot for you to taste because weren't you living in London at the time?Hooni Kim: Yes. I had moved to London when I was three years old with my mom and I was actually attending boarding school at that time, three hours away from London. So we weren't used to eating anything spicy. I remember I was the only Asian in my boarding school and I was the only Asian in the town. And we would take field trips to town and these old ladies would come around touching my hair because they had never seen straight black hair before. This was in the 70s. So this was a long time ago and it started when I was four. But every summer my mom would send me back to Korea just because she didn't want me to lose sight of where I was from, my culture. My grandmothers were still alive from both my mom and my father's side. So they needed to see me.Hooni Kim: So every summer until even after high school, when I started college and it was basically up to me to decide myself, summer vacations, I would end up going to Korea because it was habit. I enjoyed it. The Korean food has always been different with ingredients grown in the Korean terroir, Korean food as good as it is in the US just doesn't compare to Korean food eaten in Korea.Hooni Kim: I knew there was a difference between Korean food in Korea, Korean food in the US and I wanted to bring the Korean ingredients to the US to really show New Yorkers, Americans, this is the Korean food that I know. This is my Korea. And that's what I wanted to share. And Danji was born.Suzy Chase: So when you realized that there was a difference between Korean food here and Korean food in Korea, what were some of the differences you saw between like Koreatown and the food from Korea?Hooni Kim: You know, 40 years ago, food in Korea didn't have many chemicals. There weren't preservatives. The trade wasn't going on. It was more expensive to bring vegetables from China or Japan than to grow in your country, which is completely the opposite now, for most countries. Local produce was not more expensive. It was cheaper and that's all you used. Preservatives were expensive, so buying canned sauces only rich people could do that. MSG was so expensive in the 70s that only rich people could sort of use MSG. So all of these chemicals, which we find in fast food, cheap food these days, Koreans didn't cook with them until late 80s so the food that I know that I remember, the Korean food that I fell in love with, where just what we consider now fine dining, local produce that doesn't have preservatives, pesticides, flavor enhancers, just all natural food. That's still what I consider real Korean food.Suzy Chase: I want to hear about your second taste memory and gim your favorite food to eat when you visited your paternal grandmother?Hooni Kim: Yes. Wow. So my mother used to, not even joke, but she would say, "Your paternal grandmother lives in the furthest place on earth." And what she meant was to get there from both New York and London you take a plane and back then there were no direct flights. It was too long. So you'd stop at Anchorage, Alaska, for a couple hours to refuel, and then you couldn't fly over the Soviet union because of the Cold War. So instead of going the fast route, you would have to go all the way around. Basically what is a 14 hour flight used to take 20 hours with a stop in the middle.Suzy Chase: Oh, my God.Hooni Kim: So that's not all because then you arrive in Seoul and then Korean transportation back then wasn't as good as as it is now. So from there on we would take a little, local plane to a city called Quanzhou an hour. From there on, we would have to take a bus, a two hour bus to this city near the coast called Wando. And from Wando we would have to take a ferry about two hours close to the island that my grandmother lived in Soando, but Soando was too small that it didn't have a dock for a large ferry. So a boat, a little fishing boat would have to meet the ferry 45 minutes in the middle of the ocean.Suzy Chase: What?Hooni Kim: Yeah. We will have to transfer in the middle of the ocean with no bridges. So for me, being little, they're just carrying me and throwing me onto the small boat. And that was the scariest, scariest ... I still can't swim because of that because I was so scared. And it was a 45 minutes on a small, I call it a tong tong boat because that's the sound that the motor made and we'd go 45 minutes in while being very seasick and from there on to my grandmother's house will be a 30 minute walk. Three days.Suzy Chase: Oh my goodness.Hooni Kim: Yeah.Suzy Chase: Would you describe this island? I want to do a whole podcast about this island.Hooni Kim: This island had one phone, it had one market and that market had the phone line that didn't have numbers, digits. You call and then it connects you to an operator and you would verbally tell them the number that you wanted to call. But on that island nobody had phones. So basically it was a connection to sort of the outside islands or the cities or even so. That's the phone that my grandmother used to call me to England and through to New York. Electricity on the whole island would go off at 9:00 PM I think the island had three TVs when I first started and we would all go visit these houses to watch the TV. For me, we had a TV, I don't say it was a new new thing, but to most of the younger it was still a fascinating machine to to sort of see motion in a box.Hooni Kim: My memory is just going to a friend's house or a relatives house and watching black and white TV until nine o'clock and then going home. Nobody bought food at the stores. You know you bought alcohol at the stores if you didn't have enough or making it home. All the food was grown in your backyard. They had a communal rice paddy that the whole village farmed together to share. The whole island got together in November and did Gimjang, which is a sort of mass kimchi making for the entire year. Wando or ... that's South West area of Korea is famous for seafood and also famous for seaweed, Kelp as well as gim all around our farmhouse had gim. I guess people would know that as Nori or laver, it'd be dry. And that's what we would have breakfast, lunch and dinner with kimchi for a meal.Hooni Kim: Every time I go to Korea, every new restaurant I go to, every new brand of gim or nori that comes out, I try it because I want to find the closest thing that I remember. And nothing, nothing could come close or have come close to the Kim that I had on that island.Suzy Chase: So, your father passed away when you were two.Hooni Kim: Yes.Suzy Chase: Did visiting your grandma on the island kind of make you feel connected with your dad?Hooni Kim: You know, I was so young and I had never known my father, him passing away when I was two, before I could sort of remember anything. So I was fine with not having a father. I did get a sense that instead of me having a connection, my grandmother felt that connection with me a lot more. And it never changed. Every time I was there, I would never see her sleeping. When I went to sleep, she was holding my hand. When I woke up in the morning, I found her holding my hand. So I knew that half the time, maybe it wasn't me that she's thinking about, but it was my father that she had lost, she was thinking about.Hooni Kim: So I hated going there. You can imagine living in the city and then go into a farm that smelled like pig dung everywhere. You know? I understood why I was there. I complained, but I still went because there was a time when I didn't actually go. I did go to Korea, but I didn't go to Soando island because my mom couldn't make it and I was too young to be able to go by myself and I felt really guilty the entire year. So after that, I made sure that I went.Suzy Chase: Yeah. And it touched me because your dad was an only son and you were the only grandson of her only son.Hooni Kim: I have an only child, so ...Suzy Chase: Oh my gosh.Hooni Kim: Yeah. Not by choice, but yeah, we have one son.Suzy Chase: Yeah, same here. We had one, we tried for another, we didn't ... it's New York City, so ...Hooni Kim: Yeah, it's New York city, we started late.Suzy Chase: Yeah, same here.Hooni Kim: Yeah.Suzy Chase: So in the cookbook you have a recipe for dashi, which has been a mystery to me. Can you describe dashi and the process of making it?Hooni Kim: Basically dashi comes from Kelp, which is a dried, thick seaweed. And in Korean it's called Tashima. In Japanese it's called Khombu and there's a lot of nutrients and there's a lot of natural glutamates. We're trying to make that MSG man made flavor in natural form. And that's why you want to keep the nutrients of this Kelp. You want to keep the glutamates or you want to keep the flavor and that's why we don't boil it.Hooni Kim: We sort of heat it in hot water for a long time to sort of get all that flavor from that kelp. We also add shitake mushrooms and I like to add anchovies, dried anchovies. And what that acts is as a base, anytime the recipes call for water, I use dashi. Anytime it calls for, you know, like a French restaurant, Daniel ... I don't ever remember cooking with water. It was always veil stock, chicken stock, vegetable stock. Anytime we needed liquid it was one of those stocks because you never want to waste our efforts to sort of add more flavor to food. So that's sort of the same principle that I applied to Korean cooking and especially in my restaurant. And in this book, rarely use water. Water is used to make dashi.Suzy Chase: The other day I made your recipe for kimchi and brisket fried rice on page 228. Can you describe this dish?Hooni Kim: The star is the rice and of course in the kimchi fried rice, the kimchi is going to be the main flavor of the rice, but the flavor that comes out of brisket beef has a very sweet flavor because brisket is very fatty and people don't like brisket too much to sort of saute because it has a hard texture, but if you slice it really thin and you sort of cut it up and you get all that fatty beefiness into this fried rice, you get the sweetness and the fried rice that actually really helps the flavor of the kimchi because kimchi in itself is sort of acidic, sort of sour and to have a naturally sweet fat from the beef flavor the rice alone, it works. And we serve it at my other restaurant Hanjan, my second restaurant, this exact same way.Suzy Chase: Now for my segment called My Favorite Cookbook. What is your all time favorite cookbook and why?Hooni Kim: This cookbook, I have it. I study it like it's the Bible. I practice my Korean and my Chinese characters because there's just so much in this book about Korean cuisine that I still need to study to become a real Korean chef. It's called Dongui Bogam. A lot of Koreans, a lot of people don't even consider it a cookbook. It's the first medicine book ever written in Korea. But in Korea, medicine was practiced with food in the beginning. So this book is all about these Korean ingredients, how to prepare it and what it is used for as a doctor to improve one's health, to fix certain diseases. And to me, it's ... so what is important as a chef? I mean, yes, I cook good food, I cook delicious food like every other chef who's been cooking for 30 years. But to apply it to our health, that's I think another degree that we as chefs can sort of challenge ourselves on. And for me, I want to cook delicious food that is healthy.Suzy Chase: Where can we find you on the web, social media and where can we order food for delivery here in New York City?Hooni Kim: I'm not going to point out my restaurant. I think there are so many Korean restaurants that just started Caviar delivery, DoorDash, Postmates, I don't know what these delivery things are called, but Jua is a small restaurant that just opened a month ago that they're struggling to sort of stay running because of this situation. I think you should order delivery from them. Atoboy they just started delivery. There are all of these small independent Korean restaurants that you should order delivery from. We should support these small restaurants as well as my restaurants, but you can find me at hoonikim.com it has all of my information on my restaurants, but also on Instagram where I'm the most active at @hoonikim and that's where I'm at.Hooni Kim: I'm also delivering food to 30 families Monday through Friday every day because I feel like I'm the best delivery person in my staff and I'm the only one who has an SUV. We might be able to survive right now with these takeouts, but how's it going to be when we are able to open again? And people are uncomfortable going out as much as they used to. We don't know. And I think that's the toughest part. We're not in control and we don't know what's going to become of our industry. The best thing you guys can do is actually order the take out, the delivery food, and especially when this is all over, come and support us. Come dine at our restaurants and that will be amazing.Suzy Chase: We can't wait.Hooni Kim: Thank you so much.Suzy Chase: So thank you for sharing your love of Korea with us all. And thanks for coming on Cookery By The Book podcast.Hooni Kim: Thank you so much for having me, Suzy.Outro: Subscribe over on Cookerybythe Book.com and thanks for listening to the number one cookbook podcast, Cookery By The Book.

This week, Liberty and Kelly discuss The Subtweet, Hidden Valley Road, We Didn't Ask for This, and more great books. This episode was sponsored by Book Riot Insiders, Neal Porter Books, Holiday House, and Hello, Neighbor! The Kind and Caring World of Mister Rogers by Matthew Cordell, and Entangled Teen, publisher of Crave by Tracy Wolff. Pick up an All the Books! 200th episode commemorative item here. Subscribe to All the Books! using RSS, iTunes, or Spotify and never miss a beat book. Sign up for the weekly New Books! newsletter for even more new book news. BOOKS DISCUSSED ON THE SHOW: Weird: The Power of Being an Outsider in an Insider World by Olga Khazan Goodbye from Nowhere by Sara Zarr The Subtweet: A Novel by Vivek Shraya Joy at Work: Organizing Your Professional Life by Marie Kondo, Scott Sonenshein Redhead by the Side of the Road: A novel by Anne Tyler We Didn't Ask for This by Adi Alsaid Sin Eater: A Novel by Megan Campisi Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family by Robert Kolker WHAT WE'RE READING: When You  Were Everything by Ashley Woodfolk The Sleeping Nymph by Ilaria Tuti MORE BOOKS OUT THIS WEEK: One Drum: Stories and Ceremonies for a Planet by Richard Wagamese Still: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Motherhood by Emma Hansen Chosen Ones by Veronica Roth Cut to Bloom by Arhm Choi Wild Into the Tall, Tall Grass by Loriel Ryon Crazy for Birds: A Celebration and Exploration of Eggs, Nests, Wings, and More by Misha Maynerick Blaise Marie Curie and the Power of Persistence by Karla Valenti, Annalisa Beghelli The Burning by Laura Bates Choice Words: Writers on Abortion by Annie Finch The Magic in Changing Your Stars by Leah Henderson The Postman From Space by Guillaume Perreault The Five Archetypes: Discover Your True Nature and Transform Your Life and Relationships by Carey Davidson Broadway for Paul: Poems by Vincent Katz White Silence by Jodi Taylor The Rough Pearl by Kevin Mutch Moments of Glad Grace: A Memoir by Alison Wearing Malicroix by Henri Bosco, Joyce Zonana (Translator) Temptation by Janos Szekely, Mark Baczoni (Translator) Conjure Women: A Novel by Afia Atakora Spider-Man & Venom: Double Trouble by Gurihiru, Mariko Tamaki Talking to Strangers: A Memoir of My Escape from a Cult by Marianne Boucher To Have and to Hoax by Martha Waters Living Your Best Life According to Nala Cat by Nala Cat The Loop by Ben Oliver Why Did No One Tell Me This?: The Doulas' (Honest) Guide for Expectant Parents by Natalia Hailes, Ash Spivak, Louise Reimer Natural: How Faith in Nature's Goodness Leads to Harmful Fads, Unjust Laws, and Flawed Science by Alan Levinovitz Demo: Poems by Charlie Smith Philosophy in the Garden by Damon Young Learning by Heart: An Unconventional Education by Tony Wagner The Helios Disaster by Linda Boström Knausgård, Rachel Willson-Broyles (translator) Above Us the Milky Way by Fowzia Karimi Mothers Before: Stories and Portraits of Our Mothers as We Never Saw Them by Edan Lepucki Ordinary Insanity: Fear and the Silent Crisis of Motherhood in America by Sarah Menkedick The Golden Girls: Forever Golden: The Real Autobiographies of Dorothy, Rose, Sophia, and Blanche by Christine Kopaczewski The Dark Matter of Mona Starr by Laura Lee Gulledge Mitchum by Blutch, Matt Madden (Translator) Aren't You Forgetting Someone?: Essays from My Mid-Life Revenge by Kari Lizer The Poets & Writers Complete Guide to Being a Writer: Everything You Need to Know About Craft, Inspiration, Agents, Editors, Publishing, and the Business of Building a Sustainable Writing Career by Kevin Larimer, Mary Gannon Nat Enough by Maria Scrivan Pets by Ryunosuke Akutagawa Lila and Hadley by Kody Keplinger More than Ready: Be Strong and Be You . . . and Other Lessons for Women of Color on the Rise by Cecilia Munoz Eat Like the Animals: What Nature Teaches Us About the Science of Healthy Eating by David Raubenheimer and Stephen Simpson Alien Oceans: The Search for Life in the Depths of Space by Kevin Hand The Engineer's Wife: A Novel by Tracey Enerson Wood Square Haunting: Five Writers in London Between the Wars by Francesca Wade Neck of the Woods: Poetry by Amy Woolard Being Property Once Myself: Blackness and the End of Man by Joshua Bennett Mastering the Process: From Idea to Novel by Elizabeth George Little Josephine: Memory in Pieces by Valérie Villieu and Raphaël Sarfati The Pelton Papers: A Novel by Mari Coates The Truth about Keeping Secrets by Savannah Brown The King's Beast: A Mystery of the American Revolution by Eliot Pattison Forever Glimmer Creek by Stacy Hackney A Girl's Story by Annie Ernaux, Alison L. Strayer (translator) Spit Three Times by Davide Reviati, Jamie Richards (translator) Bonds of Brass: Book One of The Bloodright Trilogy by Emily Skrutskie Indigo by Ellen Bass Alabama Noir (Akashic Noir) by Don Noble Happy Fat: Taking Up Space in a World That Wants to Shrink You by Sofie Hagen Meet Me at Midnight by Jessica Pennington This Lovely City by Louise Hare So This is Love: A Twisted Tale by Elizabeth Lim Final Draft: The Collected Work of David Carr by David Carr, Jill Rooney Carr The Kidnap Years: The Astonishing True History of the Forgotten Kidnapping Epidemic That Shook Depression-Era America by David Stout The Ancestor by Danielle Trussoni Somebody Told Me by Mia Siegert Me & Patsy Kickin' Up Dust: My Friendship with Patsy Cline by Loretta Lynn and Patsy Lynn I Don't Want to Die Poor: Essays by Michael Arceneaux Raphael, Painter in Rome: A Novel by Stephanie Storey The Age of Witches by Louisa Morgan Thieves of Weirdwood by William Shivering, Anna Earley (Illustrator) The Perfect Escape by Suzanne Park The More Extravagant Feast: Poems by Leah Naomi Green The Silver Swan: In Search of Doris Duke by Sallie Bingham The Immortals of Tehran by Ali Araghi Afropessimism by Frank Wilderson A Bad Day for Sunshine: A Novel by Darynda Jones Theft by Luke Brown Trees in Trouble: Wildfires, Infestations, and Climate Change by Daniel Mathews The Love Story of Missy Carmichael by Beth Morrey Betsey: A Memoir by Betsey Johnson, Mark Vitulano Queen of the Owls: A Novel by Barbara Linn Probst Long Story Short: 100 Classic Books in Three Panels by Lisa Brown Sword in the Stars: A Once & Future novel by Cori McCarthy and Amy Rose Capetta A Tender Thing by Emily Neuberger The Best Laid Plans by Cameron Lund Mary Underwater by Shannon Doleski In the Waves: My Quest to Solve the Mystery of a Civil War Submarine by Rachel Lance Check, Please! Book 2: Sticks & Scones by Ngozi Ukazu Crave by Tracy Wolff The Silent Treatment: A Novel by Abbie Greaves Barker House by David Moloney You Deserve Each Other by Sarah Hogle You and Me and Us: A Novel by Alison Hammer The Dominant Animal: Stories by Kathryn Scanlan Aru Shah and the Tree of Wishes (Pandava Series) by Roshani Chokshi How Much of These Hills Is Gold by C. Pam Zhang A Hundred Suns by Karin Tanabe The Wolf of Cape Fen by Juliana Brandt The Third Sister by Sara Blaedel The Last Book on the Left: Stories of Murder and Mayhem from History’s Most Notorious Serial Killers by Ben Kissel, Marcus Parks, Henry Zebrowski They Went Left by Monica Hesse The Book of Lost Friends: A Novel by Lisa Wingate The Last Summer of Ada Bloom by Martine Murray The Empire of Dreams by Rae Carson The Glass Magician by Caroline Stevermer It Sounded Better in My Head by Nina Kenwood The Lucky Ones by Liz Lawson Storyville!: An Illustrated Guide to Writing Fiction by John Dufresne, Evan Wondolowski The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires: A Novel by Grady Hendrix Breasts and Eggs by Mieko Kawakami, Sam Bett (translator), David Boyd (translator) Camping with Unicorns: Another Phoebe and Her Unicorn Adventure (Volume 11) by Dana Simpson The Beauty of Your Face: A Novel by Sahar Mustafah Little Universes by Heather Demetrios Mad, Bad & Dangerous to Know by Samira Ahmed Something She's Not Telling Us: A Novel by Darcey Bell Starling Days by Rowan Hisayo Buchanan On the Horizon by Lois Lowry, Kenard Pak (Illustrator) The List of Things That Will Not Change by Rebecca Stead Jack Kerouac Is Dead to Me by Gae Polisner Dragman: A Novel by Steven Appleby The Roxy Letters by Mary Pauline Lowry The Last Voyage of the Andrea Doria: The Sinking of the World's Most Glamorous Ship by Greg King, Penny Wilson A Mother's Lie by Sarah Zettel Afterlife by Julia Alvarez A Dirty Year: Sex, Suffrage, and Scandal in Gilded Age New York by Bill Greer Ghost Squad by Claribel Ortega Tales From the Loop by Simon Stålenhag Kent State: Four Dead in Ohio by Derf Backderf Three Hours in Paris by Cara Black Life Changing: How Humans Are Altering Life on Earth by Helen Pilcher Broken by Don Winslow Camp Girls: Fireside Lessons on Friendship, Courage, and Loyalty by Iris Krasnow Strike Me Down: A Novel by Mindy Mejia Legacy of Ash by Matthew Ward Attention: A Love Story by Casey Schwartz Navigate Your Stars by Jesmyn Ward, Gina Triplett (Illustrator) The Drive by Yair Assulin, Jessica Cohen (translator) The Astonishing Life of August March: A Novel by Aaron Jackson Ruthless Gods: A Novel (Something Dark and Holy) by Emily A. Duncan Eden by Tim Lebbon Portrait of a Drunk by Olivier Schrauwen, Jerome Mulot, and Florent Ruppert Simply Living Well: A Guide to Creating a Natural, Low-Waste Home by Julia Watkins Roguelike by Mathew Henderson Wave Woman: The Life and Struggles of a Surfing Pioneer by Vicky Heldreich Durand American Harvest: God, Country, and Farming in the Heartland by Marie Mutsuki Mockett  Rules for Being a Girl by Candace Bushnell, Katie Cotugno Girl Crushed by Katie Heaney What I Like About You by Marisa Kanter My Korea: Traditional Flavors, Modern Recipes by Hooni Kim, with Aki Kamozawa Who Speaks for the Damned (Sebastian St. Cyr Mystery Book 15) by C. S. Harris Let's Dance by David Bowie and Hannah Marks I Love Leopard: The Little Book of Leopard Print by Emma Bastow

1118 Issue Maker with Chef Hooni Kim (#masterchef #요리천사 #foodasmedicine #kimchi #danji #hanjan #koreanfoodinnyc) Chef Hooni joins us to tell us about his culinary journey.

Hooni Kim is a chef and owner at restaurant Danji and Hanjan in NYC. We talk about how once an aspiring doctor became a chef and why he still pursued his dream even when so many people around him were against it. He was only one semester away from finishing medical school, and as you can imagine, it was not an easy decision. His mom didn’t talk to him for a year when Hooni decided to not become a doctor. Many people told him, “What are you doing? You are crazy!” But instead of listening to others, he looked within and listened to his own soul about which path to choose. Hooni's first restaurant, Danji, received a star rating from the Michelin Guide in 2011, making it the first Korean restaurant in America to receive the prestigious distinction. (Original broadcast date: July 3, 2018) Other episodes I have mentioned. 3 Steps to Career Happiness How to Gain Self-Awareness (https://celinalee.co/episode20) Overcome Internal Obstacles (https://celinalee.co/episode22) Take Action (https://celinalee.co/episode23/) How to Pursue Your Dreams Even When Your Loved Ones Don’t Believe in Them (https://celinalee.co/episode15/) Today’s show notes: www.celinalee.co/episode25

Hooni Kim is a chef and owner at restaurant Danji and Hanjan in NYC. We talk about how once an aspiring doctor became a chef, and his experience of working at Daniel and Masa, and why he decided to open a Korean restaurant after working at a French and Japanese restaurant. In 2011, Danji received a star rating from the Michelin Guide, making it the first Korean restaurant in America to receive the prestigious distinction.

If there's such a thing as an epic podcast interview, this is it: Chef Hooni Kim's story spans three continents ... before the age of ten. From there, it's a long journey to the professional kitchen, and then to discovering who he was on the plate, which he sprung on the New York City dining public, first at Danji and then at Hanjan, where he offers his own personal take on Korean cuisine. Along the way, he did time at medical school (including a harrowing ER story), in the demanding ktichens of Daniel and Masa, and along the way became an accidental television star in his native Korea. This is a long one, but we thought it was worth every minute. Just settle in and enjoy. Here's a thought: If you like what you hear, please tell your chef-fascinated friends, subscribe to Andrew Talks to Chefs (it's free) on iTunes or Stitcher, follow us on your favorite social media platforms @ChefPodcast, and/or rate or review us on Apple's podcast store. Thanks for listening! Andrew Talks to Chefs is powered by Simplecast

September 14, 2015 - Chef Hooni Kim, the owner of Danji, a Michelin-starred Korean restaurant in Hell's Kitchen, and Simon Kim, the proprietor of Cote, a modern Korean steakhouse in the Flatiron district of Manhattan, share their remarkable and challenging experience promoting Korean cuisine in New York City and globally. Marja Vongerichten, host of the PBS TV series “Kimchi Chronicles,” and the author of a companion cookbook titled, Kimchi Chronicles: Korean Cooking for an American Kitchen, moderates the evening program. For more information, please visit the link below: http://www.koreasociety.org/arts-culture/cuisine/bringing_the_flavors_of_cote_and_danji_to_the_korea_society.html

Korean food is incredible – full of fermented goodness and culinary tradition, but it’s often overlooked. Find out how Hooni Kim is changing people’s perceptions of Korean Food and elevating the cuisine on a brand new episode of Chef’s Story. Chef Kim is the chef/owner of Hanjan and Danji, two restaurants that re-imagine Korean food in imaginative and inventive ways. Host Dorothy Cann Hamilton chats with chef Kim about his background in medicine, his transition to the kitchen and his passion for the food of Korea. Find out why you should trust your taste buds – not your nose – when it comes to Korean food and hear why Hooni’s ultimate dream is just to make people happy. Today’s show was brought to you by Whole Foods Market. “Being a foodie was a hobby. Asian kids didn’t grow up to be chefs. If you weren’t smart – you ended up in the kitchen. I never thought about cooking as a profession.” [17:00] “It’s good to have rules, but ultimately I think a chef’s job isn’t about the food – it’s about people coming in to the restaurant to have a good time. It’s our job to facilitate that and it’s not always about the food.” [29:00] “My friends should be able to come into the restaurant and before even tasting the food and say ‘This reminds me of Hooni’ ” [39:00] “Cheese tastes amazing – but if you just smell it, you’ll never taste it. That’s the same with Korean fermented food.” [48:00] –Hooni Kim on Chef’s Story