The last weekend in November, a co-teacher of mine invited me to her house to meet her family and join in their kim-jang. A kim-jang is an annual event for families to make kimchi for the winter season. It takes days of preparation beforehand; you must grow, wash, and dry the chilies and make them into a chili paste with garlic and anchovy to season, you must grow (or buy) and wash the cabbage, coat it with salt, let it dry for 2-3 days, then rinse it several times and dry it again, and you must gather and prepare any other vegetables or seafood you will use in the kimchi. Over the course of a Saturday afternoon, we made 4 different kinds of kimchi... standard white cabbage kimchi, white cabbage stuffed with vegetables kimchi, and fresh, and dried radish kimchis. (I was given samples of each to take home and consequently now have half my fridge full of kimchi and the smell of it invading my apartment every time I open the door) :)
It's quite a process to make the kimchi, and I think for the one family we went through about a 10 gallon tub of homemade chili paste. You have to rub the chili paste by hand into every nook and cranny of the head of cabbage to preserve the cabbage for the season. I don't have many pictures because I spent most of my afternoon in rubber gloves elbow deep in chili paste and wet cabbage, but it was interesting and quite a nice way to spend a weekend. :)
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