gapshida!

recently a series of fortunate (at least for me!) events brought me face to face with my food hero, maangchi! for some reason, i had no idea that she was planning to come to denmark in october for her global cooking show. in september, she contacted me to ask if i was still living in copenhagen and that she was looking forward to meeting me. of course i told her i was elated! but a few days later, the organizer for the copenhagen meetup could no longer participate and maangchi asked me if i could do it.

o_o

only my husband knows the sheer joy i was feeling when she asked me.


at first we had planned to meet at my apartment if there was less than 10 attendees or at a restaurant if there were more. eventually, the headcount grew to over 50... woah! kafa-x, the soup kitchen i volunteer at, graciously allowed us to use the building for the meet up event. because there were too many people to cook for, maangchi decided to make it a potluck, which was easier for us and also gave a good variety of great food. even still, we did a lot of work shopping around at chinatown market and torvehallerne and prepping the food afterwards. yes, there is a cooking video that will appear at some point, as i was able to find a cameraman (pictured above). he's a friend of mine who is hopefully now inspired to cook some korean food at home. (:


there was so much food! the table was totally packed with plates and bowls. maangchi and i made beef and radish soup and also a spicy pork stir fry. for my friend the cameraman, we made a vegan version with mushrooms instead of pork. among other things, people brought pickled tomatoes, broccoli soup, pumpkin soup, stir-fried chinese greens, frikadeller, kimchi (duh), kimbab, potato cakes, red cabbage salad, carrot salad, butternut squash and pear salad, and some lovely desserts. two guys even brought about 10 bottles of soju, wow! i don't even want to think about how much that cost here in copenhagen. D:


these three girls were a big surprise; they came all the way from sweden to meet maangchi! one of them even made some really good korean fried chicken. i was so impressed... i will definitely invite them to the next kimchi-making class. (:


the next day, maangchi invited me to her hotel room to have lunch. turns out that she had a little picnic stashed away in her luggage! with the little travel rice cooker, seaplant sheets, kimchi, dried anchovies, spicy dipping sauce, tiny shrimps, tiny dried fish, and squid, it was one of the best meals i've had in copenhagen in a long time. we wrapped everything up in the seaplant sheets and made a long kimbap roll. after lunch, i took maangchi for a classic tour of copenhagen. of course we had to see the little mermaid first, as she's advertised in every denmark travel brochure. then we walked by the old fortification of kastellet, the palace of the danish royal family, nyhavn, the pedestrian street, and then city hall. phew, that was a lot of walking! sorry, i didn't take any photos... i just wanted to relax and hang out with maangchi, haha! she posted some fun photos already.


by the time we got to city hall we had only eaten some ice cream in coffee (yes, you read that right!) and tea since lunch, so we decided to eat dinner at my favourite chinese place. that's right, we went to magasasa! we ordered some very spicy fish in a LOT of chili oil and the spicy crab, both off the sichuan menu. obviously we ate it with rice! it was so good after our long walk in the chilly weather and a great meal to see me off to hong kong. (:

the next day i didn't have time to see maangchi again as she had another engagement and i was busy packing for my own trip. at that point it hit me how privileged i was to have her all to myself for a whole day, haha! the more we talked, the more i realized we are the same 'species.' we'll probably meet again someday. after copenhagen, she continued her cooking adventure in australia, new zealand, singapore, indonesia, malaysia, and the philippines! safe trip, maangchi! ^^