Korean Bapsang is pretty good. As for Maangchi, I really enjoy listening to her videos, because her Korean-accent is so delicious when she speaks English. I spent the majority of the years of my youth in South Korea, and there is nothing quite like the Korean accent when someone speaks English, at least to my ear. Like mama's home cooking!

I occasionally make black bean noodles (ja-jang-myeon). I have a history with jajangmyeon. i first encountered it when living in the dorm at my university. In those days, you ate whatever they gave you. They only made one dish for every meal, so you either ate that or went hungry. When I first sat down with this bowl of ink-black food in front of me, it was a real mental struggle. Black food! Whaaa....? Didn't even look edible.

But after a few times, I got over the mental barrier, and it became one of many, many favorites. It has a certain position in the Korean cuisine - Koreans like to pig out on this food. It's a type of eat-out gobble-up favorite. However, although it's Korean food, in actual fact it is derived from Chinese cuisine, just Koreanized. In Korea its "Chinese food" and in those days, all the "chinese cuisine" restaurants (except the super authentic Chinese ones) served the Korean versions of Chinese food. "let's go get some Chinese food" is what you'd say to your buddy if you wanted to eat jajang myeon.

I'll sometimes throw in a tablespoon of sugar when I'm preparing it, but it's usually not that sweet. Took me a while to get the taste right, but it's become a staple.

If there is a Korean restaurant anywhere near you, go down and buy a bowl to check it out. Even though in Korea it's "Chinese food" (chung-shik), some K restaurants overseas (i.e. in the west) will carry it, because its a really popular eat-out dish for Koreans. So generic places will offer different types of Korean favorites - they cannot really afford to specialize like they do in Korea (south) because there's not enough Koreans to make it work. So, overseas, in my experience, it's all just "Korean". But in downtown Seoul, mostly you'd have to go to a Chinese restaurant (chung-hwa yori) to get black bean noodles.

Reminds me of a curious thing about K-bbq and how cultures interpret other cultures in their own way. Early in the 90s, Korean food started to make inroads in Japan. Prior to '88, there was very little K-J cultural exchange; both countries were pretty hostile to each other culturally. But in the 90's things started to change, and Korean food started to catch on in Japan.

One of the first things that caught on was yakiniku (literally "flamed or fried meat", aka barbecued meat, aka "barbecue" Korean style). But as is often the case in such things, the Japanese did Korean-bbq in their own way, modified and made more palatable to the Japanese palate and the Japanese sensibility. So, even though it was a Japanized version of Korean bbq, for Japanese, they think this is 'eating Korean-style food'. Just like Ja-jang-myeon (bb noodles) is actually a Koreanized version of Chinese food.

It was really funny for me when, after not living in Korea for a few years, I took my family over to Seoul one time (from Japan), and I spotted a big sign on a restaurant somewhere in downtown Seoul saying " 일본식 야키니쿠" which translated says "Japanese style yaki niku". So essentially what they were promoting "Japanese-style Korean-style barbecue" as Japanese food to Koreans!!!! <chuckle> True story.

Regarding the cost of kimchi, that's a big reason I started making it, too. Just getting too expensive. But now, I feel like I've really arrived with it, and I don't think I'll be buying kimchi for home use ever again.

I want to make my own doenjang soo bad

Wow, ambitious!!! Me? I'm a lazy bones.