From the journal.
Recipes, culture, hanbok, and the meaning behind Korean traditions. Written by Eric and Mrs. Lee Youngsook, posted as we cook and source.
A Short Walk Through Korea
Korean culture is often introduced to Western audiences as a list. The food, the music, the fashion, the cinema, the language…
Korean CultureThe Calendar Korea Still Lives By
The lunar calendar still runs the Korean home. It decides when the ancestors are set a table, when the first spoon of tteokguk is…
Korean CultureA Year of Korean Celebrations
Ask any Korean family which day matters most and you will get two answers, sometimes three. Seollal for the elders. Chuseok for…
Korean CultureThe Games We Played on Seollal
On Seollal morning, before the food is served, someone always finds the yut sticks. Four pieces of wood, four possible throws…
Korean CultureWhere to Stand Under the Blossoms
Cherry blossom season in Korea opens at the southern coast in late March, sweeps north through Jinhae and Gyeongju, and reaches…
Korean CultureTwo Weeks of Pink in Korea
The first weekend of April in Seoul, the Han River parks fill with families on picnic blankets, couples in coordinated outfits…
Korean CultureThe Year in Korean Festivals
The lantern floats leave Jinju in October, and for a few evenings the Nam River becomes a page of light. Somewhere upstream, a…
Korean CultureWhat August Fifteenth Means at Home
August fifteenth begins quietly at the Lee house. Youngsook sets the table with a small bowl of white rice, a plate of 파전, a…
Korean CultureThe Eleventh of November, Four Sticks
Pepero Day is November 11. The date reads 11.11 (four ones standing in a row, like four sticks of the chocolate-dipped biscuit…
Korean-American LifeHow Korean Students Actually Study
It is ten at night in Daechi-dong and the sidewalks are full of teenagers with backpacks, walking from one hagwon to the next…
Korean-American LifeHow Korean Students Stay With It
The senior in our consulting cohort who improved her SAT the most last cycle did not have the best tutor. She had a habit of…
Korean-American LifeHow to Study a Korean Weekend
Saturday morning in a Palo Alto library. A junior spreads out three textbooks and a kitchen timer. She has six hours before her…
Korean-American LifeThe Night Before the Suneung
The High Stakes of South Korea’s College Entrance Exams On the morning of the Suneung, younger classmates line up outside high…
Korean-American LifeHow Korean Students Study for Tests
The week before the Suneung, Seoul quiets down. Flights are grounded during the listening section. Parents kneel at Jogyesa…
Korean-American LifeHow Korean Teens Actually Study
The Study Habits of Korean Students The number that surprises most American parents is forty-nine. Korean youths aged fifteen to…
Korean-American LifeA Day in a Korean Student's Life
Six in the morning in Bundang. The high schooler in the third-floor apartment is already at her desk, half an hour before the…
Korean-American LifeHow to Take Notes That Stick
The best notes I ever kept were from a fifth-period AP Biology class in Cupertino. Blue Uni-ball pen, dot grid, one page per…
Korean-American LifeHow Korean Students Actually Study
The hagwon lights on Daechi-dong stay on until eleven at night. Buses queue along the curb, waiting for students who file out…
RecipesWhy Korea Stops on November Eleventh
Every November 11, Korean convenience stores build entire aisles out of a single snack. Boxes of Pepero stack chest-high near the…
RecipesKorean BBQ at Your Own Table
Ultimate Guide to Easy Korean BBQ Recipe Introduction to Korean BBQ The grill plate is on the burner in the middle of the table…
RecipesTen Things to Eat on the Street
It is cold in Myeongdong. A vendor pours batter into a fish-shaped iron and clamps it shut over a small blue flame; a minute…
RecipesThe Cider That Is Not Cider
Korean cider is not what an American shopper thinks of as cider. The Korean version is a clear, sweet, lightly carbonated soda…
RecipesThe Toast Sold on Seoul Corners
South Korea is not only a haven of beauty products, fashion, pop idol music, and drama. Even if you’re not an avid fan or…
RecipesHow to Sit at a Korean Table
Korean Food Guide Introduction The rice is steaming. The 반찬 are set out in small dishes across the middle: 시금치나물, 콩나물, 오이무침, a…
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