Around the time of the bloom of kimchi flowers

I look at the flowers blooming inside the kimchi jars by the kitchen window.

No matter how many times I make kimchi, it never gets easier. But I can’t live without it either. When I run out, I start to feel uneasy. So, I decided to make kimchi again. I bought a box of napa cabbage and left it in a corner of the kitchen for a few days, unsure of what to do. Living in an apartment, I don’t have a big basin to salt the cabbage properly.

In the end, I cleaned the sink thoroughly and salted the cabbage overnight. Since I only have a single sink, I had to wake up early to prepare breakfast. I suddenly remembered a friend who used a large plastic bag to salt the cabbage, shaking it around to coat everything evenly.

I minced garlic and ginger, shredded radish, chopped green onions, and mixed the seasoning paste. Red chili paste splattered on the floor, the walls, even my clothes. The kitchen looked like a war zone. Making kimchi is hard, but cleaning up is just as exhausting. Now, five jars of kimchi sit in a neat row by the window.

I wait for them to ferment. The color at the top of the jars looks dull and dark—this batch seems to be another failure. I promised myself never to make kimchi again, but still ended up flipping the kimchi from top to bottom in each jar, hoping to fix it.

But kimchi is a must. So I bought a pack of pre-made kimchi from the store. It was too spicy and heavily seasoned. I shook off the excess seasoning and saved the leftover juice in a jar. I used it to make cucumber kimchi, cubed radish kimchi, and a mix with green onions and chives. With the last bit of juice, I made watery kimchi. Just from one store-bought pack, I made four more jars of kimchi. Not Buy One Get One—but Buy One Get Four!

I lined up all five jars on the kitchen windowsill and keep checking them to see how they’re doing. I open the lids from time to time for a taste.

A friend visiting from Seoul looked around the kitchen and, spotting the jars, said they were beautiful—she thought there were flowers blooming by the window. And come to think of it, the green onions and chives do look like leafy stems, and the napa cabbage, stained red from the chili powder, really does look like flower buds. The watery kimchi floating at the top even looks like a lotus flower on water.

I keep walking in and out of the kitchen, gazing at the kimchi “flowers” blooming inside the jars. It still amazes me how I ended up with five jars of kimchi—with hardly any effort.