Basil Kimchi That You Can Make in 10 mins

And a plush doll salon 🧸

안녕! It's Ari, your talkative Korean friend and weekend reminder 🎉 Today’s shorter-than-usual 🥲 newsletter is about an unusual kimchi recipe, how to write fangirling tweets in Korean, and a plush doll salon. Let’s start!

🙏 No podcast this week because the newsletter is too short to record 😇

Basil Kimchi That You Can Make in 10 mins

img credit: 10000 recipe

There’s a meme in Korea that says Koreans can turn anything into kimchi. This means that they make kimchi with almost any ingredient you can or can’t imagine. While there are well-known ingredients like cabbage and radish, there are also unexpected ingredients like watermelon, sweet potato, and tomato. I’ve tried watermelon kimchi, tomato kimchi, and most recently, potato kimchi, and they all tasted great! It’s like having a salad with kimchi sauce.

The latest trending kimchi is basil kimchi. A Korean comedian recently shared her recipe on a TV show, and it went viral. Unlike making cabbage kimchi, it’s so simple that it takes less than 10 minutes to make. If you’re tired of the same old salad or cabbage kimchi, try this basil kimchi. It’ll make a perfect side dish for jjaphagetti (instant black bean noodle), steak, or pasta. Here’s the recipe:

1. Prepare 3-400g of fresh basil

2. Mix 1 tablespoon of soy sauce, 1 tablespoon of brown sugar, 4 tablespoons of spicy pepper powder, 100ml of pear juice, 5 tablespoons of crab fish sauce (or anchovy fish sauce), 3 cloves of minced garlic, and 5 pieces of chopped chives in a bowl.

3. Mix the basil with the sauce cautiously using spatulas so that the basil leaves don’t get damaged.

4. Bon Appétit! 😋

Mini Korean Lesson: Write Fangirling Tweets

⁸² @xxluvmk

이마크 얼굴

Many Korean K-Pop fans write tweets that compliment or praise their idols’ beauty, and you don’t have to be a native Korean speaker or an advanced learner to do it. Let me show you how to write fangirling tweets in a super-easy way. The formula is simple:

Your idol’s name + 얼굴

“얼굴” means “face” in Korean. Many fans upload their idols’ face pics with a caption of “idol’s name + 얼굴.” For example, the tweet above says, “이마크 얼굴” which means “Mark Lee’s face.” This is a popular way of writing fangirling tweets. You can also replace “얼굴” with other physical features. Here are some popular physical feature words used in these tweets:

1. 어깨 Shoulders

2. 손가락 Fingers

3. 허리 Waist

4. 핏줄 Veins

5. 쇄골 Collarbone

6. 목젖 Adam’s apple

인형이발소 @Eeebalso

🎀 인형이발소 커미션 🎀 더보이즈 주연 인형 빤질빤질 이뻐진 쥬냥이 !! 목욕 & 미용 & 경락 완료! 작업 사진 타래로 ⬇️ 전 후

One last thing to share is a viral plush doll salon. Many K-Pop fans buy and carry small animal plush dolls that resemble their favorite idols. As time goes by, the dolls can become dirty and worn. Recently, a salon for these idol plush dolls has opened, offering bathing, grooming, sewing, and even massage services 🥹. The salon shares before-and-after shots of the dolls, and one of them, a plush doll of Juyeon from The Boys, went viral 👆. The salon says it’s fully booked in April and prices start at 10,000 KRW.

Thanks for reading! If you liked my newsletter, like ❤️, leave a comment, share, or make a donation to support me 👆. It’ll help me keep writing!

I take a spring break next week 🌸. See you the week after next. 안녕!