It’s been a few months in the works, but the all-Korean issue of Chicago-based Plate Magazine has hit newstands. Plate is targeted to chefs and restaurateurs, and I signed up for their newsletters about a couple of years ago. Tammy and I were contacted sometime in September and October to write articles for it. Tammy has a 2-pager on breakfast in Korea (“Morning Zen: Korean breakfast picks up the pace”), which anyone who lives in Korea would know is a challenging topic.

First page of Tammy's article

I wrote one of the main articles about the Seoul dining scene, which looks like it covers six pages. In it you will find quotes, interviews and recipes from some ZenKimchi faves, like Chef Hu-nam Kim (Star Chef), Chef Ciaran Hickey (W Hotel’s Kitchen), Chef Jung-sik Yim (Jung Sik Dang) and Chef Nick Flynn (formerly of the Grand Intercontinental COEX and I hope staying safe in Cairo). And close to my heart, amongst these top-notch chef recipes they include my wife’s Doenjang Jjigae, which is our household recipe.

The challenge of writing this was the discipline in getting the recipes perfect. We worked to get all the measurements accurate for our household recipes. And I gathered recipes from the chefs, which were complex and needed many questions answered. Plate recreated the recipes themselves in their own test kitchen for the photographers, and I’m impressed at how true they are to the originals.

EJ's Doenjang Jjigae recipe