Kimchee Sermon; Vol. 1 -- The Afterschool Special

Microphone check. I did that up there, did it big with the napa cabbage and the bok choy, and grated a Wall street bonus worth of carrot. Also used an obscene amount of ginger, and crab paste, which was not listed in the kimchee gospel sacred text. It suggested shrimp paste, which is purple. I'm fine with that, just sayin' that the stuff is actually purple. But yo check it out the crab paste was dope crizzle essence, and just as tangy as all that. Think about what crab paste is. Crab paste is a concentration of crab force. It is the flavor of that most revered ocean beast (apologies to the white whale) thrown over a cliff into more of itself, and then left to get awesome in the sun, and mixedtaped with spices. The flavor gods have forsaken all others. The rest are heretics, naysayers, soothsayers, false flavor prophets, harlequins, and those left behind when the flavor rapture happens. Don't let that happen to your kimchee.

Kimchee requires time and distance, like the exploratory career of Marcus Whitman, early northwestern pioneer. This makes it more of an activity. Rounding up the traditional ingredients across town, paying for them, and then having to roll an embarrassing six deep with napa cabbage heads back home, and then spending a small eternity shredding stuff, peeling and chopping other stuff, and then slicing and doing many other sharp sounding things. I thought it was a magic secret, something guarded culturally, forbidden flavor knowledge, not for outsiders. I've made many a pilgrimage to the Asian Deli, an inevitable journey of renewal and rejuvenation for the shelves in the refrigerator, a bevy of new conspirators in slow decay, personified whenever I close the door. Its a united nations of flavor in there. Speaking of which, I understand that Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, while on his visit here recently, has been highlighting the worldwide human rights tragedy of the volume of incidences of maternal death, calling for greater awareness and response, and collaborating with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The secretary of the flavor united nations is Dill Clinton, and he's pontificating once again about how reduce our reliance on store bought kimchee. The ghetto dope of kimchee going wop-wop.

The draft resolution reads:

Be it resolved, that you first need to make, produce, or get to the store and buy the following ingredients: Crabpaste, freedom sauce (or fish sauce), baby bok choy, napa cabbage, cucumber (You know), carrot(s) to the 5th power, ginger, one vampire's quota of garlic, a quorum of Sgt. Peppers (red thai chiles, I used pickled ones that I did not pickle, regrettably), salt, and lemons.

Whereas, you first need to render these ingredients, proportionally. There should be considerably more cabbage & choy than anything else.

Whereas, you need to make a brine and and put all of the cabbage & choy into said brine, and leave over night, for whatever. Thenst, you hereby drain and thoroughly rinse the cabbage & choy, reserving some of the brine.

Whereas, if you skip the draining and rinsing step, your kimchee will be nearly inedible for most, nay, all palates. It gets crazy salty, like a spoonful of Morton's.

Whereas, you should respect the heat of the peppers, otherwise people will cry when they taste it. Yeah that really happened. The first response was muffled choke. The salt hijacks your taste buds like a somali pirate, holding them for ransom until you develop stockholm syndrome (like I did), or swill some anything in sight, and then the heat punches you in the throat, like Norris. The flavor secretary's mission is to promote harmony through properly seasoned cuisine. And he's into some other stuff too, like online poker. He's also in a fantasty football league too. But that's when he's not serving in his capacity as flavor delgate and diplomat, dining dignitary, cooker of things, eater of the night, extreme maker of hummus, freelance smoked salmon consultant, sultan of blue cheeses, one man taco testimonial.

Whereas, you combine the ingredients together while offering, softly, a tender memorial for Swayze, singin sweetly she's like the wind, as a blessing signifying the ceremonial commencement of kimchee construction. Proceed to coat everything evenly with the flavor thrillogy of all that spice. Put in a large jar for fermenting, this mixture and some brine, and some water. Taste the bok choy and the mix and make sure that this isn't a throat busting salt shot in every bite. add lemon juice and layer also, and continue mixing until everything is integrated. Make sure the mixture has a small level of holy fluid over it, and seal this hypothetical jar with its corresponding sealing device.

That's pretty much it. It turned out to be strong, but the flavors mellowed with age, and it was arguably consumed prematurely. Traditionally this jar of live culture goodness is thus buried in a yard with the spirits of beloved pets and reptiles, and allowed to ferment for months, or whenever. I'm not trying to google any specifics right now. The process was chopping intensive, and it wasn't that difficult wrangling ingredients. I enjoy the rhythm of chopping vegetables, almost as much as the smooth crooning of Swayze. I wanted to do this, it got done. No one was banished this time.

Aesthetically it is very pleasing. I enjoyed it mostly because I prepared it, because I learned by trial and error, kale and brimstone, that you have to must obey the legend of the salt and the heat. This is a religious flavor edict: just be patient and taste everything. A reoccurring theme in the gustatory gospels. When I bought from the convenience store shelf, I always liked what I was tasting, but it was bitter and not as good as I seemed to remember it tasting years ago (it had been awhile). I wanted to resurrect that mysticism, ascend to another realm of flavor, reach the dimension traveling back through time. Maybe I just wanted it to taste good again.

It was entirely worth the effort to make as much as I did. Tasty food on the cheap, and a good side dish for nearly anything with Asian spices. Dope money with chicken and rice. The longer it sits, the better it gets. Make a fine brine. The things are very comfortable after they have had time to get to know each other, relaxing and conversing in the wavy pale light of the bottom-lit fermentation hot tub. But for me, after eight weeks, it's just now getting to where I had wanted it to go. We learn from the gospel, written by The Rev. Luther Vandross of eating.