Baek-oi-sobagi (White Stuffed Cucumber Kimchi)

At the summer market, I buy cucumbers by weight and judge them with my thumb. A good one for baek-oi-sobagi is narrow, heavy, thin-skinned, and prickly enough to complain. Cook the month you're standing in. This dish belongs to the stretch of heat when cucumbers are cheap, radish is sharp, and a cold bowl of brine on the table does more work than another hot soup.

Baek means white here: no gochugaru, no red paste, no hiding the cucumber under heat. It asks for cleaner hands than the red version, not lazier ones. Salt the cucumber just enough to bend around its stuffing, cut the radish fine enough to slip into the cross, and make the brine clear by straining the pear, onion, garlic, and ginger. If the brine is cloudy from carelessness, the dish tells on you.

Notebook 53 says 35 minutes in hot salt water for the cucumbers I buy in June. Longer made them tired; shorter left them raw at the center. Your cucumbers will have their own stubbornness, so taste a sliver after salting. It should be seasoned to the middle but still crack under the teeth.

This is kimchi for tonight and tomorrow, not a crock for winter. Stuff it, chill it, let the brine settle into the cuts, and bring it out with rice, grilled fish, or a bowl of noodles. Write it down. Memory is a borrowed bowl.