Spreading the Joy

My family knows I have and addiction to korean dramas. Pretty much anyone who knows anything about me does.... Sometimes they indulge me and watch a few episodes with me. My biggest supporter is my mom. She watches shows I pick out/screen for appropriateness and has even gotten into watching some on her own when I'm not around. She's so cute :) . So far she has watched Pasta, Spy Myung Wol (failure on my part), and is now currently fascinated by Fermentation Family. Mom is now thoroughly convinced that I should move to Korea so she can come visit and eat tons of yummy vegetables. My other convert to kdramas was an accident. Little brother's girlfirend came to visit on college break and we started watching What's Up. I walked into the room the other night and hear "come on, just one more episode...please?" Insert evil chuckle here. She's a keeper. My favorite though is my father. Lately he's been sick, so the other day I made him all nice and cozy in the living room...and set up the first episode of History of A Salaryman. He's a history junkie that works in the retail world, so it wasn't that hard of a sell. Best part- mom called to check in on him and when she heard he was watching kdramas, her first words were "oh, he's really sick isn't he?". 

Fermentation Family- Impressions

I think I might recap this show, but I haven’t decided. It’s not because I don’t love the show, I do- very much. It’s just that not much really happens. I suppose that could lend itself to super short recaps. Hmmm….

Fermentation Family, also known as Kimchi Family, is like Monarch of the Glen (a most fantastic British show) meets any random makjang k-drama- plus food. Vegetables are my least favorite ingredient, but this show almost makes me want to eat them. Almost. The scenery is beautiful. The camera loves to focus on something small, like the tree memorializing the mother, and then slowly pull back to reveal a gorgeous panorama. The overall feel of this reminds me of A Star’s Lover before it got deadly boring. Oh crap.That better not happen here. The acting is pretty decent. Sometime Song Il Guk overdoes it a bit, but he’s so sincere and totally putting his all into this, so it doesn’t bother me that much. I love the way the relationships are forming between all the characters- and constant character growth from everyone. In fact, they’re pretty blatant about it. Sometimes k-dramas tend to develop their leads and ignore the secondary characters, or leave the hero’s character stagnate- not here. Oh, and have I mentioned the food?

Each episode contains food “homework” from the father (who ran away from home in the first episodeJ) and we get a delicious crash course in preparing some sort of kimchi dish. So yummy! Overall, this isn’t the most addictive drama I’ve seen or even prettiest. What it does is give me the warm fuzzies…like eating gooey macaroni and cheese while curled up on the couch during a snowstorm. That, and this is pretty much the first drama world I’d actually like to live in.