Buchu-kimchi (Garlic Chive Kimchi)

Garlic chives tell you what season you are standing in before the seller does. In spring and early summer the leaves are flat, tender, and dark green; by late summer they get coarser and want a jeon pan more than a kimchi jar. Cook the month you are standing in: buy slender buchu that bends without cracking, and use it the same day.

Buchu-kimchi is a Gyeongsang table dish, quick, sharp, and not shy. It often sits beside pork, gukbap (rice soup), or a bowl of rice when the meal needs one bright, salty green thing. The mistake is treating it like cabbage kimchi. Do not salt it first. Garlic chives have no thick ribs to protect them; salt them first and they surrender before the seasoning reaches the jar.

My teacher had me wash the chives three times and then leave them alone on a towel until they were dry. I was impatient. She only pointed to the wet green streaks in the bowl. Water steals the seasoning, and rough hands bruise the leaves black. Tonight this dish asks for clean washing, patient draining, and gentle turning, nothing grand. Write the amounts down. Memory is a borrowed bowl.