June 16th, 2008 by kimI love this video…Scott Jones, the Executive Foods Editor for Southern Living magazine offers a look into the life of third-generation Cajun shrimper, Timmy Cheramie. For more on why we should be supporting shrimpers like Timmy, go to Wild American Shimp. You can also check out Timmy’s shrimp recipes and more on myrecipes.com
Read Scott’s story and See the video on Southern Living’s website.
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0 Comment » May 24th, 2008 by kimThanks to Hongseok (Angel) “Roy” Ro for his hard work on making a lovely documentary about my return journey to South Korea. And to Mike for the translation. Thank you… Sunée Nunna
Category : Uncategorized May 22nd, 2008 by kimIt’s the season for fresh raw crab preserved in soy sauce. Not to be confused with busters or soft shells–the shell stays hard but you suck and out oozes gorgeous raw crab jelly. It’s a labor of love to make this recipe, but is completely addictive.
Lee, early morning at the RICETERIA in Insa Dong
Green Tea Dusted Rice “Toast” with corn sweet potato salad
Shrimp Sauce, Incheon Market
This is from an all-organic foods restaurant in InsaDong. 
Category : Uncategorized May 15th, 2008 by kim
Today the Korean translation of my book, Trail of Crumbs: Hunger, Love, and the Search for Home (Grand Central) was published. The Korean Title is: Recipes in the Age of My 30’s: Provence in the Middle of Summer, I was always a lonely traveler, though I had love…
It is an honor to be published in a language once familiar but long forgotten. Here are the amazing women behind my Korean publisher, Minumsa:
Press conference at Sejong Cultural Center:
After a long day, we ended with a live interview on YTN–Korea’s equivalent of CNN. My intrepreter, Won, and I prep for our national Korean TV debut.
I’m on the phone with Jan from Paris–who senses to call at the most important moments in my life. Thank you Won for making me make sense these last few days. And to YTN for listening to my story and helping me get one step closer to finding family here in Korea. 
May 12th, 2008 by kimSeung-Hee and I spent the day at some of her favorite dives, tea shops, and street food stalls:
A snack of Silkworms boiled in water and soy sauce in Insa-Dong…I only tasted one–it was actually good, but just enough to satisfy my curiosity.
Back to Heaven–the name of the tea shop and a poem by a Korean Poet. The specialty here is the tea made of candied quince (preserved from 3 months to 3 years) and puffed rice cake snacks that taste like styrofoam with a little sugar and sesame. 
We also went to one of her favorite dives in the Sam Chong Dong neighborhood–a funky Soho-like quarter–for Seung-Hee’s dreamy comfort food. This place basically only serves Su-Ja-Bee Soup and different types of savory pancakes. As we were waiting in line, Seung-Hee clapped her hands and said: “I’m so excited. I love having to wait in line–it reminds me that I have to deserve this soup.”
Su-Ja-Bee is made of a clear shellfish stock clarified broth filled with clams, zucchini, and “flying pasta”. It’s like chicken and dumplings of the sea. The pasta is made of all-purpose dough and held up like pizza dough as it gets turned and shaped. Then, with one flick of the wrist, the cooks pull pieces of the dough and send them soaring into a boiling pot of stock. We also had bean pancakes and 2 types of kimchi, of course, all for about 12 dollars for 2.
Category : Uncategorized May 10th, 2008 by kim
This is the last day of shooting for Roy’s KBS documentary on my return to South Korea and search for my beginnings. We’re all exhausted but still hopeful as Lee Herrick and Mike, the translator for the Korean version of the documentary (to air on KBS in Seoul Thursday May 15th) Roy and I returned to the port city of Incheon and the Sinpo Market.
As we walked through the stalls, I remembered why I am heartsick in port cities–You can smell the sea and all the water that divides…
When Roy and Mike explained to these Korean grandmothers that I may have been lost at this marketplace 33 years ago, they took me into their circle and kept stroking my hair and holding my hand. They said I will find what I am looking for…
Here, the men of the village all had something to say: “Ah, The orphanage is no longer here.” “The police station has moved.” “The church is over there…no, it’s that way.” “My son is living in Atlanta.” “Have some rice cakes.”
We finally happened on a motorcyclist with boxes of hot rice cakes. He drew a map to the Star of the Sea…
But when we got there, a nun told us there were 2 and only one still exists…We have to go back to the beginning, no passing Go, no stopping at the Community Chest, and definitely no Chance!
We also went to an “underground” cooking class and spent the last of the evening at JaSeng Hospital of Oriental Medicine while I exprienced Chuna Therapy and acupuncture for acute stress…Dr. Royer was asking very personal questions about my health while Roy was filming. When it got to having to prick my abdomen and talk about my daily “functions” I told Roy no more shooting.
Here are Roy and Mike after a long (and final) day of shooting,and searching…
Category : Uncategorized May 9th, 2008 by kimSusumu Yonaguni, a Japanese chef who started out as a dishwasher in the kitchens of The Savoy came to Korea, but not to grill bulgogi or rice cakes. Instead, he wanted, like most real cooks, to cook food he knew and loved. Thanks to stints in New York working with Terrence Brennan, and Dave Pasternack (chef at Esca–one of my favorite lunch spots in NYC), Koreans can now have a taste of regional French and Italian cooking.
“It wasn’t easy,” Susumu sighs. “Getting Koreans to eat French and Italian. But I persisted because this is what I know and love.” Because he can’t get all the ingredients he needs in Seoul, Susumu makes his own cow’s milk ricotta, buttermilk, etc. And while many Koreans have all varieties of vegetables frothing and fermenting in their cellars and gardens, Susumu uses his space to enhance the goodness of peppery duck prosciutto. He said he couldn’t sell it or even give it away because of the fear of Avian influenza, but how could I resist Susumu’s lovingly cured 3-month old duck prosciutto with kumquat confit…
My food-obsessed translator, the adorable Seung-Hee, looks happy too.
We also tasted an arugula salad with gorgonzola, caramelized pear, and fried acacia blossoms, brandade, perfectly al dente pasta with cauliflower, toasted breadcrumbs, anchovies, and grated bottarga…and a silky quiche with onion confit.
The cooks in the kitchen are all students from Susumu’s cooking school. 98% are young women. “Women,” Susumu states, “have a finer palate, and make better cooks.”
The proof was in the salted butterscotch budino!
Category : Uncategorized May 8th, 2008 by kim
Lee is the author of This Many Miles From Desire. He was kind enough to greet me on my first evening here in Seoul. It was unexpected and magical meeting for the first time in the country where we were both born, and both abandoned. We are searching–separately, and somehow together with all the others–for a way to make sense of the missing…
This is from Lee’s poem, Korean adoptee returns to Seoul:
…a Korean adoptee smelling Seoul
for the first time in the thirty years?
The first night back, I dream about birth
rights and death dates, birthdates and love
lost somewhere over the Pacific.
The first night back, I dream in that hotel room
behind the temples about a birth scenario.
I dream about the woman whose body bore me,
right here in this city thirty years ago, where
that same vendor flapped the newspaper
at the flies on the durian, eighteen years after
the Korean War when Russians took the north
Americans took the south, below the thin line
that served as the new border. Maybe
she was thirty and I took too much from her
busy life and she could not imagine death
so she left me on the steps of a church.
Maybe she was sixteen, and
I was heavy on her heart and on her back
so heavy that in her dreams, I could sink
quietly, in a lake.
Have I mentioned this to you?
Have I mentioned how downtown Seoul
collides with the horizon, how I could smell
pieces of Fresno even here at the barbecued squid
vendor’s five foot business, how close Pyongyang
feels when I am in Fresno among the blossoms,
the cement, and the hopeful ones like me and you,
counting on tomorrow being good?
Have I mentioned how Seoul is a city
in which I have loved and been loved, left and been
left, a city in which I found green plants raging
out of the earth, trees reaching toward the sun
with such vertical precision you’d think God,
yes, God had been involved in the planting?
I should mention how the sun tries to blaze there
like the sun tries to blaze here, how the son
finally rests having been home and smelled the city
and its possessions: the garlic fields, the rice fields,
and the woman’s hands mixing
the kimchi into the egg
How his heartbeat sounds as if it is saying life
life life life deep like the water
that connects these two cities
and the light breeze that blows in between.
Category : Uncategorized May 8th, 2008 by kimI apologize for being a bit late on my promise to write about this return journey to Seoul…
Roy (right), the director of a Korean documentary series called “Scenes of Life” for the Korean network KBS flew into Birmingham to document my return journey to South Korea. His show has helped many Korean adoptees find their birth families. I haven’t had much time to think about the possibility of finding mine–I didn’t even know it was possible, but Roy and KBS have a history of reuniting adoptees with their birth families… Roy has been, literally in my face, since Thursday….We took a break from shooting. My friends (Catie on the left, and my fabulous web designer back left) got together to send me off–we attempted to make cabbage kimchi, but ended up drinking more than eating.
Initially, I was invited by The Seoul Metropolitan Governement to visit Seoul. I haven’t been back since 1994…but this time I am returning to my birth country on my own terms and with an open heart.
Here, I am with some flight attendants from Korea Airlines in Atlanta. 
The view of the Han River from my room at the Grand Hyatt in Seoul. I turn over in the early morning and look out over the city (of over 10 million people) and wonder if someone out there remembers me….
Category : Uncategorized April 29th, 2008 by kimAll of this is happening very quickly, but I’m going back to Seoul this Sunday May 4th. Originally, I was going to check out the markets, restaurants, and street food of my birth country but now my Korean publisher, Minumsa, will be publishing the Korean edition of Trail of Crumbs May 9th.
I’m also going to be on a show for adoptees called “I miss you” on the Korean network, KBS. Stay tuned for more….
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