Kimchi, Potato Chips, and Bay Area Restaurants—A California-Style Food Education

An interview with Susan Hwang of Venice

This week, I get to share something fun—an interview with an old classmate. Susan Hwang is in product marketing at Google and lives in Venice, and when I was thinking of cooks to interview this fall, I remembered hearing that she had staged at a restaurant a few years back. When we caught up, we talked about how her family came to California from South Korea, what she cooked during the pandemic, and how living in California has affected the Korean food she cooks for herself these days. She also gave me a recipe for a really delicious, fusion-y jeon. Here is her story, condensed and edited for clarity:

Susan Hwang

I don't have a culinary background, but when I went to grad school in 2009, I was in a part-time MBA program and I was working full-time. Midway through—I think it was just a culmination of burnout, but also kind of just wanting a break—I quit my full-time job and emailed Suzanne Goin, and I basically volunteered: I'll stage for you for free if you just let me into your kitchen. And, surprisingly, she did. I had asked about pastry, and so she connected me to her pastry chef at Tavern, in Brentwood. So I went in, and I loved it so much that I ended up staying for over a year. I actually graduated business school with an MBA and was unemployed and working for free at a bakery. 

While I was in school, people would say, “What are you doing this summer?” And I'd say, "Oh, I'm baking. "And they're like, "Oh, investment banking? Which bank?" And I'd say, "No. Baking."

I didn't really tell many people at the bakery my story. And I remember at one point they pulled me into the dry storage. They're like, "You know, you've been very diligent, coming in on time and doing good work; we're ready to offer you a position. You can come in for the morning bakes at minimum wage." At that point I had already been working a long time. So, I politely declined because I wanted a little bit of freedom, but I continued to stay and volunteer. I would've done it longer. I stopped because I ran out of money and I needed to get a job, and I had debt from grad school. But it was one of the most amazing and humbling experiences.

Susan Hwang at a recent Chuseok benefit for Gyopo, an LA-based non profit

I was born in Korea.

My father was working for Korean Airlines before I was born. I have a brother who's five years older. They had lived in Bangkok and Guam and other places. After I was born—in Korea, in Seoul—we moved into corporate housing in Torrance. So my first memories are of going to the Del Amo mall and watching my mom take jazzercize and aerobics classes at the community center.

And then my parents decided they wanted to become small business owners. That's kind of the classic American dream, even though my father came here with a corporate job. They found a small business in Camarillo. My father had, obviously, worked for Korean airlines, but they bought a place called Walt's Boot Barn in Camarillo. They sold Justin boots and Rockport shoes—work shoes—and did shoe repair in the back.

For some reason, my father thought I could do this. My mother had never worked. And my father's somebody who is not a very handy person. Like, if anything breaks, even if the toilet needs to be fixed, he has no idea what to do.

I grew up eating a lot of Korean food. At the time I didn't appreciate the notion of whole foods. I realize now my taste was formed as a kid, and I appreciate that on the dinner table we had whole grilled mackerel and a lot of fresh vegetables and soups and stews and things like that. But all I wanted back then was the green bean casserole or things that I would see at my friend's houses, where everything was prepared in a casserole dish from boxes. Like Stove Top and SpaghettiOs and stuff. And we had very little of that. So I grew up hating Korean food and just desiring all of the things that come from, like, Hormel and Chef Boyardee.

Also, because Asian food is so stinky and there's a lot of fermented foods, like doenjang (which is the Korean miso equivalent), I was so embarrassed to have people over. This is sort of an Asian cliché, but, you know, you walk in the front door and the entire place reeks of garlic, onion, and, what I thought at the time was stinky feet (which was kimchi in the back of the fridge in massive gallon jars). All I wanted was Wonder Bread.

In junior high, actually, people would fight for the sandwiches that my parents made me. Sometimes my dad would make them, when he was in town (he worked a lot in Korea, because the shoe store didn't work out). They would make what I now realize is kind of the equivalent of like a Bay City sandwich—a really layered, full sandwich with lettuce and cheese and tomatoes and all these things. And all I wanted was Lay's potato chips. So people would fight to swap with me. And I never understood why, because I thought it was so gross.

By the time we had settled in Camarillo, my family made regular monthly trips to Koreatown so my mom could get ingredients. But she would tell me stories about how when they first got here, there were no daikon radishes. She would use those little round red radishes because she wanted something similar to pickle. I think it's amazing how limited the produce was then. I had never had any fancy lettuce or more than one variety of tomato. At the time we had three types of apples, right? Red Delicious, Golden Delicious, and then Granny Smith.

One of the foods that we ate frequently, and is still popular in Korea, was Spam. Having been a kid growing up in wartime, my mom had fond memories of how the GIs had brought Spam and M&Ms to Korea. So those foods were very common as well. She would try to make Hamburger Helper, or we'd have occasional taco nights—the Ortega style with the Lowry seasoning and the shells. But a lot of it was Korean food. And that’s something I appreciate now, because I love it.  I'm glad she force-fed it to me as a kid. Those are now the flavors that I crave all the time.

Susan and her mom and brother at the Queen Mary

I guess the first time I started cooking was in college, sophomore year. That’s when I moved into an apartment and had a kitchen. Actually, I have to give a lot of credit to my friend Lauren Moss. She and I lived together sophomore year, and her mother would come up—Dotty—and she was a big foodie. I had never had fine dining or purposely sought out any fine foods. But her mother would come up and she would take us to wonderful places. The first time I went to the Chez Panisse Café or to La Farine—or, back in the day on Fourth Street in Berkeley, there was O Chamé, that Japanese restaurant—was all through Lauren's mom.

At the time, Lauren was a vegetarian, so we would make a lot of veggie pastas and a lot of omelets. I don't think I was cooking very much Korean food at the time. I don't think I got into that until after college.

After I graduated from college, I lived in San Francisco, and my best friends—who are still my best friends today—we all loved to go out to eat and also loved to cook. We would throw barbecues. And the thing we would barbecue was Korean barbecue. We would go to the Korean market, get the pre-marinated meat and all the banchan, and people loved it.

Susan and her dad in their backyard

In general, I tend to like to feed people more Korean style—having a lot of variety. So instead of doing like one main dish, I love bringing together a lot of side dishes.

I actually was baking bread before the pandemic. And by the time the pandemic hit, I was breaded out. So I was making other things. I make a lot of my own flour tortillas. I love, obviously, getting Mexican food all around LA, but I got into making tortillas and I got it to a point where I like my method and I like how they turn out.

I love giving food away to people, so whenever I make stuff, I will do drops for friends or call them up and say, "Hey, do you want a dozen tortillas?" 

For myself, I tend to make mostly Korean food. I make a lot of stock with oxtail. I don't add anything to it. I'm not putting in vegetables or any sort of equivalent of like an Asian mirepoix or anything. I'm just really slowly cooking the oxtail. And I use that base for everything in Korea cooking. I’ll use it for a soup, or I'll use it for tteokguk, which is the rice cake soup, or I'll even use it as a base in stews and things like that.

I make a lot of jeon, which is Korean savory pancakes. It’s usually a wheat-based batter; sometimes I'll add rice flour. The classic ones are kimchi jeon, like a kimchi pancake, or buchujeon, which is like a chive pancake. I will just put in whatever greens are about to go bad. I love getting greens from the farmer's market, so I'll put in all types of things, whether it's the wilted dandelion that I got, or the arugula, or a medley of things. It's so versatile, because it's just literally a pancake batter and then you throw in whatever. So that's one thing where I definitely go kitchen sink and use whatever is starting to go bad. I'm trying to be more aware of food waste and instead of throwing away greens and produce at the first sign of blemish or wilting or going yellow, I’m trying to actually cook it.

I love omurice—you know, just rice with an omelet. But when I'm really hungry—or, I'll admit, slightly hungover because I had too much wine the night before—I go straight for eggs. I'll try to get texture though. I love nurungji, which is at the bottom of the rice cooker, where it starts to brown and get crispy, but I don't usually have it readily on hand. So, I’ll literally just throw some oil in a frying pan, throw in some day-old rice, kind of tamp it down, and try to get some brown on it. And then I'll just crack an egg over that into the frying pan. (It's super messy, and I feel like this is almost like a kid food.) I'll crack an egg over it and just kind of agitate it so it kind of seeps through the cracks and turns into an omelet with the nurungji studded inside of it. And I'll put that on top of a tortilla. And then I'll roll it up after I spray it with a bit of Maggi sauce for a little bit of umami. I will eat that with either kimchi or another type of pickle.

Susan and her parents in high school

During the pandemic, when we were hunkered down and a lot of places were closed, one of my best friends, Adam Reese, and I, we would concoct these elaborate brunches for ourselves. We would get obsessed with themes. He’s a baker and super into sweets. I like savory. So, we would do these elaborate spreads on Sundays. We would have kind of like a WASPy “ladies who lunch” theme, where we would do tea sandwiches and things like that. For his birthday, he requested a bolognese, so I went a little heavy with a lot of cured meats and made a very labor-intensive bolognese—which tasted just kind of the same as a less-labor-intensive bolognese.

I think, in general, my food philosophy lately has also been to ask this question of, like, what is “authentic”? If it's Korean-American, Korean-Californian, that's authentic to me. Even if it's not in complete original form, what the OG recipe or dish looked like in Korea in 1950.

Zucchini, Poblano, and Cilantro Jeon

Susan laughingly calls this her “fusion” jeon. She often uses a variety of different vegetables leftover from the farmers’ market or her local Mexican market in this classic Korean dish. When I made these for the first time, I ate an entire jeon myself while I was waiting for my family to get home—and then my kid ate one with her hands as soon as she got to the table. Susan notes that they’re great to take to a potluck, because you can serve them at room temperature, but let’s be realistic—you’ll probably eat all of them yourself before you get to the party.

Makes 4 pancakes

1 large poblano pepper
2 medium zucchini
Kosher salt
1/2 cup roughly chopped cilantro leaves
½ cup all-purpose flour
¾ cup whole wheat flour 
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon tuna sauce (or fish sauce)
1 egg
1¼ cups plus 2 tablespoons water
Vegetable oil
Dipping Sauce (see below)

1. Roast the poblano directly on the stove top, until the skin is totally blackened, then put it in a paper or plastic bag for 5 minutes. Peel the skin off under running water, remove the stem and seeds, and dice the flesh. (You should have about ½ cup.)

2. Julienne the zucchini, toss it with a few large pinches of salt, and let it sit for a few minutes to remove some of the water, then squeeze the zucchini well to remove as much liquid as possible. (You will have about 1 cup.)

3. Put the poblano, zucchini, and cilantro in a medium bowl.

4. In a separate bowl, make the batter: Combine the all-purpose and whole wheat flours with the salt. Add the tuna sauce, egg, and water, and whisk everything together well. Mix the batter into the vegetables; you should have slightly more vegetable than batter.

5. Heat 2 to 3 tablespoons of oil in a pan on medium-high. When the oil is hot, add ¼ of the batter and spread it out to form a pancake. Cook until the bottom is golden brown, then flip the pancake and cook it on the other side. Repeat three more times with the remaining batter and serve the jeon with the dipping sauce.

Dipping Sauce

2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon rice vinegar
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1 teaspoon Korean red pepper flakes (gochugaru)
1 teaspoon toasted sesame seeds
1 tablespoon thinly sliced green onion
1 small garlic clove, minced
Pinch of sugar (brown or white)

Mix all the ingredients in a small bowl.

More California Stories to Read, Watch, and Listen to

If you haven’t seen it yet, the short(ish) NYT documentary about Sally Schmitt, the founder of the French Laundry, should be at the top of your media list this week. (And once you’ve read it, get her cookbook, which was published shortly after she died this past spring.) The LA Times has a piece about a “backyard restaurant” making pescado zarandeado in Inglewood that makes me want to jump on a plane to go try it. KQED has a great profile of Illyanna Maisonet and her new cookbook Diasporican: A Puerto Rican Cookbook (which we’ll take a closer look at in the newsletter in a few weeks).

Also, I’ve added another newsletter to my recommendations list: Eat. Drink. Think. is published by Edible SF and is a great resource for those in the Bay Area.

Photos: Georgia Freedman, Courtesy of Susan Hwang (4), Georgia Freedman