About Me
The eldest of three children, I was born in South Korea and immigrated to Australia with my parents at the age of 4. Having grown up mostly in Australia (with a brief 2 year stay in Korea when I was 14 – 16), I’ve grown up in a strange hybrid existance of Korean and Australian attitudes and mentalities, which very much crosses over into fields such as my cooking – I love my kimbap just as much as I do a good chicken parma or pavlova!
I keep this site running mostly for myself, in order to document my progress in both my cooking and photography, and also to document my mother’s Korean recipes for the future – for both myself and those who browse the internet in search of good, home-style Korean recipes 
My equipment is fairly simple. I used to use the Canon Powershot G7, until I purchased a Canon 450D dSLR in June 2008. My two primary shooting lenses are the 50mm f1.8 and 100mm f2.8 macro. I do most of my photo editing in Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop.
Press
Mentions in the press or around the internet:
Bruce, M. “Blogs with Bite“, Herald Sun, 27 February 2007
Cullumbine, L. “Looking for the memories that make you hungry“, Herald-Tribune, 14 March 2007
Joanne Lutynec, “Food Porn: Churros with Dulce De Leche“, Slashfood, 29 March 2007
Kara Zuaro, “DIY Food Porn“, Chow: The Grinder, 19 September 2007
Kalyn Denny, “Helpful Food Photography Tips from Fellow Bloggers“, BlogHer, 1 November 2007
“Cooking on the Web“, The Sacramento Bee, 16 January 2008, p. F2
Lola Pak, “Worth a click“, KoreAM Journal, July 2008, p.24
Wooller, R. “Cool Hunting: Going Up / Going Down“, Sunday Times, 3 May 2009
Easy Korean Recipes, BizyMoms, 4 May 2010
“Pineapple Baskets“, Ipswich Advertiser, 13 October 2010
“Digging for rubies“, And Now It’s In Print, Edition 1 / July 2010
Though not printed media, I’m proud to say that the Kitchen Wench food blog was selected to be part of the National Library of Australia’s PANDORA project – a national project to archive websites chosen to be of some significance. The first archive was made on 10th February, 2011.
Contact Me:
You can contact me by emailing me at chipmunksneeze [at] hotmail [dot] com or by using the contact form below.
cforms contact form by delicious:days
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi. I am so pleased to have found your blog. I have visited Korea a few times and spent a year there teaching English wayyyyy back in 1986. I love Korean food and miss it – have tried making a few things over the years but have always found it challenging to follow a recipe without the kind of detailed instructions and information for true beginners that you have included. I’m also loving that you have included vegetarian and vegan options. I live on the Sunshine Coast where there are NO Korean restaurants (not one!!!) and very few places to buy Asian groceries, but I can get the basics.
I am wondering whether you have a family recipe for Su Jae Bi (I don’t know if I have romanised that correctly!) In Korea a colleague and I would often stop at a little Su Jae Bi house in Pusan, we absolutely loved it. Our students would laugh when we told them, and say that it was ‘poor man’s food’. But we adored it, especially on a cold wintery day. I remember trying to make it once or twice, fairly unsuccessfully. Wondering if you might blog it some time.
Kamsahamnida!
Hi Neroli, thank you for such a lovely comment! I know what you mean about recipes – Korean cuisine has only experienced a surge in popularity over the past few years so recipes are more accessible now, but good ones used to be very few and far between
I do indeed have a recipe for su jae bi and it’s on my list of things to blog~! I’m with you, just because it’s cheap and simple doesn’t mean it’s not good – it is, in fact, one of my favourite things to make during the winter months because it is so filling and tasty!
Keep an eye out, I’ll hopefully have the recipe for this up within the next month!
You are just lovely! I love the way you organized your recipes and everything, it all looks absolutely delicious and fairly easy to make. I am 20 and I am just beginning to cook and I find everything around here so lovely! People like you inspire me. I am definately saving this page for later, so I can come back and enjoy your page some more!
I found you by looking for a chocolate mud cake recipe and I am amazed. It really rare that someone has such an incredible and organized page without those annoying ads floating around.
Anyway, I’m rambling. Thank you for sharing all these wonderful things!
Happy baking!
Sofia
Thank you for the lovely comment, Sofia
I’m glad that you’re enjoying reading the blog and that you find it to be an inspiration! I hope that you continue trying new recipes and expanding your base of recipes 
Great write up on your moms kimchi …… We are two chefs in California that both have very different concepts and techniques in the kitchen. I love all food from South East Asia and love combining those flavors with local food that takes you back to childhood when you eat it. I have been playing with kimchi lately and your mothers recipe looks like a good one. If you ever travel West ….. and find yourself in California, shoot us an email. We have cooking shows and classes and would love to have you stop in.
Thanks for the blog …. enjoyed it!
Dustin
Hi Dustin,
Thanks for stopping by and leaving the lovely comment
California is on my wish list of places to travel so if I ever end up there, I’ll get in touch with you!
Cheers,
Ellie
Wow! Finally a food blog relating to Korean food (along side the good chicken parma or pavlova)~~Hurray *^^* Thank you so much for showing the delights of Korean food. Please please ~~ hope you can show us more Korean food to “stimulate” our taste buds. Cheers
Thank you
I’ll do what I can!