About Us & Contact Info
WE LOVE FOOD!
This journal relates our adventures in experiencing food in Korea, along with recipes for Korean food and tips for ex-pats living in Korea.
A LITTLE HISTORY
ZenKimchi was started in early 2004. The Food Journal came about because Joe McPherson wrote so much about food in his diary blog that it was becoming a food blog. At the time, there was only one English language food blog in Korea, the original Fatman Seoul, but Mr. Fatman stopped posting in 2005. Joe picked up the slack by creating the ZenKimchi Korean Food Journal in October 2005. ZenKimchi is now Korea’s longest running food blog.
Other Korean food blogs have come along to join us, and it’s a great community. ZenKimchi has been featured in The New York Times, Korean and international newspapers and magazines, all the major Korean TV stations, Lonely Planet and the Travel Channel’s Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern. ZenKimchi Korean Food Journal is the only Korean food site linked on Bon Appetit’s Epicurious blog and has been listed as one of the “50 Sizzling Hot Asian Cooking Blogs” by Guide to Culinary Schools. It was also voted one of the Top Ten Food Blogs of 2011 by the New York based food site Friends Eat. ZenKimchi currently holds a strong presence in social media with the highest number of Twitter followers of any Korean food Twitter account. Through this site, we have also met some awesome people.
WHO WE ARE
Joe McPherson founded ZenKimchi in 2004. He has been featured and sourced in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, CNN, KBS, MBC, SBS, Le Figaro, Travel + Leisure Southeast Asia, Harper’s Bazaar Korea, The Chosun Weekly, and other Korean and international media. He has consulted for The Travel Channel’s “Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern,” Lonely Planet, and the new PBS documentary series “Kimchi Chronicles.” Mr. McPherson has written for multiple Korean and international publications, including SEOUL Magazine, JoongAng Daily, The Korea Herald, Newsweek Korea and wrote the feature article for U.S. National publication Plate magazine’s all-Korean food issue. He acts as dining editor for 10 Magazine and is on the judging panel for Korea for the Miele Guide. He has recently finished writing a book on Korean food globalization that will be published in 2012. He spoke at TEDx Seoul on Korean food globalization and in New York City on Korean Buddhist temple cuisine. The company ZenKimchi International organizes food tours for tourists and corporations and acts as a media liaison for foreign and Korean media and local restaurants and producers.
Eun Jeong Lee (Research, Attitude) trained really hard to be a lifelong Korean and has achieved phenomenal results. She speaks Korean well and likes kimchi. She also agrees that Korea has four distinct seasons. She’s the magic maker at ZenKimchi, finding and setting stuff up that we thought was not possible and we were told was not possible.
Tammy Quackenbush (Editor, San Francisco Bureau Chief) lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her love of Korean food started when she taught ESL in Chuncheon, Gangwon-do, back in 1996-1997. However, she didn’t become “famous” for her Korean cooking style until she started making cooking videos on YouTube as Koreanfornian Cooking in 2007 (had to put her college degree to use somehow). Her recipes and articles have been featured on Slice/Seriouseats.com, Foodbuzz, Korea.net and iFoodTV.com.
Shinshine (Editor, New York Bureau Chief) cooks French food in a restaurant kitchen full-time and Korean food in her tiny home kitchen on weekends. Her food adventure reflects her childhood from Korea, her daily life in Manhattahn, and her enthusiasm for endless possibilities of Korean food, which she shares with the readers of ZenKimchi Food Journal as well as her own blog www.shinshine.com. With her understanding of Korean and American cultures, culinary trends and languages, she has also written about Korean food scenes in New York and food trends of Manhattan for Korean publications, and translated for the Korean food dictionary project.
Taeyang Yoon (Writer, L.A. Bureau Chief) is an entrepreneur who has owned and operated a small Asian fusion restaurant with a sushi/sake bar. He loves to marry flavors and textures from various parts of the world and tries to make them his own. Although, he is not professionally trained in a culinary school, nor journalism, that doesn’t stop him from opining on the world of food. He founded KarFarm.com, and you can find him roaming around the San Francisco Bay Area or Southern California.
Steve Ward (Videographer, Writer) has been living in Seoul for nearly five years now and has dabbled in many different hobbies and types of work in that time. He briefly became known as ‘SkinnySteve’ because of his mission to lose weight while working on the website SeoulSteves, but since SeoulSteves is now defunct, he’s now kinda-sorta skinny, and he’s really bad at making up nicknames for himself, he’s now ‘JustSteve.’ “Steve” also works just fine. SteveWard.TV is the homepage of his official online presence.
ChubbO Chubbington (Writer) has lived in Korea for about 2 years. She has been gifted with the ability to eat spicy food and not complain about it or sweat while doing so. She also teaches English in between meals. Her main dietary considerations consist of texture, texture, taste, and texture. It’s gotta feel right between the tongue and the teeth. She leaves the cooking to her Korean husband and focuses mainly on consumption. She knows Krispy Kreme is not one of the main food groups, but hopes to rectify this injustice in the future. She is currently living in Wonju and writes at Wonju Wife when she’s not stuffing her face.
Grace Meng (Writer) is a nonprofit consultant and writer living in Brooklyn, NY. She was an immigration lawyer until a few years ago, when she ran away to Mexico to learn how to make mole negro and started blogging at One Fork, One Spoon. She is now writing a cookbook on Korean food with her good friend Diane Choo, which has given them the best excuse ever to take road trips around Korea eating all the way.
CONTACT US
We love hearing from readers, especially the ones who think the journal is the wittiest, most informative site on the Internets.
NOTE: Joe is available for interviews and projects if:
- It is about food and professional life, not personal life.
- ZenKimchi does not need to recruit people to appear.
- ZenKimchi does not need to find locations for shooting.
- An English speaker/interpreter is provided.
Incoming search terms:
- avatarlar korean
- andrew zimmerman korea food bloggers
- plate magazine korean food issue
