62 PUNCHMAGAZINE.COM {food coloring} Which is what brings me to a hilly neighborhood in San Carlos. I’m on a quest for kimchi. But I won’t be learning this well-known Korean dish of tangy fermented cabbage in a typical cooking class. For a start, it’s the first one I’ve taken in my socks. And I’m not slicing veggies on a stainlesssteel countertop in a commercial kitchen, but on a sturdy wooden table in a room with family photos and funky abstract art. Not under the direction of a polished culinary school graduate, but a venerable Korean grandmother who effortlessly eyeballs rather than measures her ingredients. Grandma Moon Soon Choi stands at the head of the table and instructs me and five other students in Korean while her daughter Kelly Choi translates. We dutifully chop scallions on our bamboo cutting boards. Close by, there’s a tub piled high with pickled Napa cabbage heads, an amber bottle of fish sauce, freshly ground garlic and ginger, large Korean radishes, a jar of salted shrimp and a bright bowl of chili flakes (sun-dried by our instructor out on her deck). Moon Soon is one of the Grandmas from Around the World, a cooking series hosted Everyone loves a cooking grandmother, keeper of the family recipes, master of her craft. With no need for cookbooks, she learned from countless hours leaning over stovetops, dispensing judicious pinches of this and splashes of that. If you aren’t lucky enough to have one of your own to learn from, don’t despair. Nearby, you’ll find grandmas willing to ladle out lessons to a new generation of home cooks. words by JOHANNA HARLOW COOKING CLASSES stovetop studies PHOTOGRAPHY: JOHANNA HARLOW
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