Comfort food means different things to different people. To use myself as an example: I was raised by a Southerner on a series of military bases, so to me comfort foods can be anything from slow-cooked grits served with lots of salted butter and black pepper to a bowl of miso with tofu and spring onions. Today, after the snow and the rain and the wind, all I wanted in life was kimchee.

Kimchee, also spelled kimchi or gimchi, is a traditional Korean side dish, often used almost as a condiment (ala Indian chutneys), of brined and fermented vegetables. The most common type of kimchee is baechu kimchee; baechu is a type of Chinese (Napa) cabbage. The cabbage is brined in salted water for several hours, rinsed, and then smeared with a seasoning paste made of garlic, scallions, Korean chili powder, and ginger, among other ingredients. After seasoning, the cabbage is packed into jars to ferment for at least a day or two. Kimchee, properly prepared and stored, can keep for months, but I prefer relatively fresh kimchee. There are probably thousands, if not millions, of variations on the basic recipe, but good kimchee, however it is prepared, is spicy-hot, salty-sweet, and perfectly tangy.

Kimchee is also a very healthy food, despite the sodium content. The vegetables provide lots of dietary fiber, as well as vitamins A, B1, B2, C, carotene, calcium, and iron. The fermentation process promotes beneficial bacteria, such as Lactobacillus kimchii, which aid digestion and keep intestinal fauna well-balanced. All of these factors make kimchee a wonderful food for when one is feeling a little under the weather, with the added bonus of clearing those sinuses right out.

Unfortunately, finding kimchee in Seattle can be challenging. As of the 2000 US Census, although 13.1% of Seattle residents identified as Asian, only .9% were self-identified Koreans, versus 3.4% Chinese or 2.1% Vietnamese. This might help explain why one can get a bowl of pho anywhere in town, but kimchee historically has only been available at Uwajimaya, or by bribing (extorting, semantics, whatever) Korean-American friends to part with some of their stash.

The tragic Seattle kimchee shortage is being addressed, finally. Both PCC and Whole Foods stores have been known to carry small jars, and there are a few Japanese-Korean restaurants around town that are rumored to serve kimchee to regulars, or upon request, although it’s not necessarily on the menu. I’m not insider enough to know what these restaurants are, and those who claim to know won’t tell me, so until recently I’ve been left to seethe in my own frustration.

I’m all better now, because our very own Pike Place Market is now home to Market Galbee, a Korean BBQ lunch counter right across from Pike Place Bakery, home of the giant “Texas” donuts and fritters. Market Galbee specializes in meat– galbi means “rib” in Korean, and generally refers to marinated and braised BBQ’d short-ribs– but if you look carefully, they also have a small menu of side dishes: rice, noodles, or kimchee, all for very little money. A fiver will feed a healthy appetite with change for a tip.

I recommend getting noodles to go with your kimchee. The kimchee is fresh, crisp, and spicy-tangy-salty-sweet, but the rice has been gummy and stale both times that I’ve ordered it. The noodles are a safer bet. And more fun!

Market Galbee
1505 Pike Place
(Main Arcade, top level)
206 623 3305

If you’re like me, you hate going out to bars on “Amateur Night” – a/k/a/ New Year’s Eve and face the choice of either staying in or finding something else to do on a night when there’s very often not much else to do. And then there’s the problem of finding something to do on New Year’s Day, a day when many businesses are closed. Eay solution? Go to the movies.

On both New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day, SIFF Cinema is running marathon Godfather sessions, screening both parts one and two of the cinematic epic, two films routinely considered among the best ever made. The original Godfather film plays at 4:30 each day; the 8:00 pm show time for The Godfather, Part 2 gives you plenty of time to stretch out your legs and get some fresh air between showings. (Or you can do it backwards and see Part 2 at 12:30 pm.)

Over at the Grand Illusion, you can view Late Bloomer, a Japanese film about a severely handicapped man who manages to rise above his limitations in order to become a homicidal maniac.

Celebrate the 65th anniversary of Day of Wrath with NWFF‘s screening of a newly restored print of the film Pauline Kael called “one of the most completely moving films ever made”. Day of Wrath, filmed in Denmark during Nazi-occupation is an allegory that condemns the Nazi rise to power in the form of a dramatic tale of a young wife attracted to her elderly husband’s son.

This week, they swear, unless you’re in places like Northgate where they started back up this weekend. I know lots of people will be thrilled–many people that I know had to stop taking their trash outside by Christmas because there was simply no place to put it outside, which didn’t make anyone very happy.

If the trash in your house is too much to take, waiting for pickup to happen, you can take it to one of the disposal stations from 8 to 5 for free this week. There is one in Wallingford at 1350 N. 34th St. and another in South Seattle at 8105 Fifth Ave. S.

If your garbage collection is normally on Thursday or Friday, it will be delayed until Saturday because of the holiday. Anyone not sure of their collection day can look it up via SPU.

WAMU’s spiral into failure is documented in today’s New York Times. The article starts with this now-ironic quote:

“We hope to do to this industry what Wal-Mart did to theirs, Starbucks did to theirs, Costco did to theirs and Lowe’s-Home Depot did to their industry. And I think if we’ve done our job, five years from now you’re not going to call us a bank.” — Kerry K. Killinger, chief executive of Washington Mutual, 2003

The article is a great look at what went wrong and verifies a lot of the rumors that ran rampant to the very end. Let it be a lesson to other banks or businesses in other industries.

If, like me, the street you live on is still an iced-over death trap, you haven’t received mail for a week and a half, and Santa didn’t visit this year, you can call the city at 206-386-1218, to ask (beg, plead, barter your first born child) that they send a snow plow your way. I spent an hour on auto-speed-dial, trying to get through, before giving up, so I can’t tell you whether you get to speak to a real, live human, but if you manage it, please do share. And let us know what happens! I’m a bit skeptical that a plow will arrive in my ‘hood (east of White Center), before our climate steps in to take care of it.

Update: I got through on the DOT line at 11:50 AM on Saturday. At 3:45 PM, a truck with a scraper attached to the front puttered up my street, scraping off just enough snow and ice that we were able to get the car out. We stood on the front porch and cheered – groceries!

for Saturday, December 27, 2008

7:00 – 9:30 PM: Even writers like to spend the holidays at home, so not much is happening around town until after the new year; however, John Cohassey will be at the Rendezvous in Belltown, tomorrow. Cohassey is promoting his book, American Culture Rebels: Avant Garde and Bohemian Artists. After his talk, Ramona will play some hip-hop and electronica.

Cohassey and Roy Kotynek spent years researching and writing American Culture Rebels. From the press release: “The book focuses on American artists from all disciples [ed.- I think they mean disciplines.] and their influence on counter culture movements from the 1850s through the 1960s. It starts with transcendentalists Thoreau and Emerson, and ends with Allen Ginsburg, Bob Dylan and The Doors. In between, they discuss Georgia O’Keefe, Ezra Pound, Ken Kesey, Walt Whitman, Jack Kerouac and many more.”
This event is 21 and over.
[LINK]

Between December 26th and January 11th, Seattle residential yard-waste subscribers* can recycle their trees curbside by cutting them into 6-foot-long or shorter sections, with branches trimmed to less than 4 feet. Bind with sisal string or twine. Another option is to recycle up to three trees at recycling and disposal stations.

*This is, of course, if the City of Seattle can get those yard-waste disposal trucks back on their regular routes to pick up the trees.

I just received this suggestion via txt message from a friend. Please to enjoy:

“I vote we naked sun dance around a bonfire at the top of Denny Hill, wearing only snowboots & beanies, roasting a whole pig & chanting canceled bus numbers.”

Check out this You Tube Video that shows a drunk driver getting up close and personal with sledders on Queen Anne Hill. Thanks to stevem for the link.

Queen Anne Asshat

To build on what Wesa said earlier:

• Metro has cut service tomorrow back to 50% of normal, so it’ll be close to what it was on Friday. If you’re bus-dependent for work, you’re probably not getting there. Again. Sound Transit also cancelled five major routes for tomorrow.
• The deicer fluid crisis at Sea-Tac isn’t major yet — they have enough for Monday. Alaska and Horizon suspended service earlier today because they were almost out of deicer, but other airlines are OK until tomorrow, and Sea-Tac is getting some shipped in from other local airports. The big issue is that the fleet of tankers carrying more deicer are on the other side of Snoqualmie Pass waiting for it to reopen. If the pass can’t open tomorrow and the trucks can’t deliver in time for the Tuesday crush… a whole bunch of us will be having a White Christmas in Seattle instead of ANYWHERE ELSE.
• The Sounder trains serving the Seahawks game did get stuck, and there was an angry mob, but the trains were fixed and everyone went home.
• Also from the P-I: Green Lake is freezing over, but we’re a ways from skating weather.
• By the way? It’s snowing. AGAIN.
• And the kids are snowboarding the Counterbalance, as the picture above from Chris B in SEA demonstrates. He’s got quite the photoset of Counterbalance snowriders.

Stay inside. Stay safe. Hopefully it’ll be over with by tomorrow morning, the power will hold, it will rise above freezing tomorrow afternoon, and Sea-Tac will get back to normal by Tuesday. Please?