Kimchi and Pizza
by Nanna Noneit, Special Contributor

"I love kimchi. It's so spicy, crunchy, and…"

"It gives me gas."

"Cabbage gives EVERYONE gas."

"I don't like kimchi…at all."

"But you're Korean. That's a SINFUL thing to say! If I was Korean, I would eat all the kimchi I could get my hands on. I tried to buy kimchi once, from that store you suggested, remember the name? It was…it was..uh…it was…"

"Han Ah Reum?"

"Yeah, yeah! THAT one! Han Ah Reum! I walk into this brightly lit, clean store and look around for the kimchi section and I found it! I was SO unbelievably happy, I thought I'd died and gone to kimchi heaven. There were ROWS of kimchi in jars this big [demonstrates] of all types. I'd never known there were so many different varieties, the big cabbage, the small green leaf thingies, cubed white carrots, and cucumbers! Loads and loads of them!"

"Yeah, that's what Koreans are known for…eating kimchi…kimchi with breakfast, kimchi with lunch, kimchi with dinner. We're addicted to the stuff. I'm not but my parents are. What do you expect? They came over from Korea and still eat rice and kimchi every day."

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"My mom's deathly afraid my dislike for kimchi means I'm not Korean enough and she said she would be ashamed to show her face back in her native country if it turned out I was too…non-Korean."

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"You are SO lucky. I LOVE kimchi. I had another Korean friend who introduced it to me a long time ago and oh my gosh! It was SO good the first time I tried it, I was hooked! That thing's like a drug…"

"You're going way-off base here."

"You just told me your parents are addicted to the stuff."

"That's different. They're KOREAN. Of course, they're hooked. What self-respecting Korean from Korea is going to admit he doesn't like kimchi? That's like, well, it's like a sin. If you're Korean, you eat kimchi."

"You're Korean and you don't eat kimchi that much."

"I'm Korean-American. Of course, I don't eat kimchi that much. I like other things you know. Like burgers, KFC, french fries, salads."

"I LOVE kimchi."

"You told me that already."

"I LOVE kimchi so much I had to make my family taste it. And they loved it too! Anyway, let me go back to the Han Ah Reum part of my story, I went in, I took a jar to the counter, and tried to pay for it but the lady there was giving my this funny look. She asked me if I liked spicy foods. And so I said, well, yeah! I love kimchi. And after I said that, she gave me this BIG smile and gave me that noodles with the vegetables in it to me for free…I think it was called japcha?"

"Jap Chae."

"Yeah, that's it! And so I took it home, I got everyone in my family to try it, and we ate it with everything we could find. I even tried it on bread and pizza."

"Bread? Bread and kimchi? Does that even taste good? I've tried it on pizza before but plain Wonder bread?"

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