Roasted Cabbage — Onions — The Humble Base of Everything We Build

June. Summer beginning. Hana is eighteen months old. A year and a half. She is fully walking, running, climbing, expressing opinions about everything from the color of her cup (yellow, always yellow) to the temperature of her rice (warm, never hot, and she will test it with her finger before committing). She is a small person with large preferences. She is exhausting. She is magnificent. She is exactly the person I wanted her to be: confident, curious, bilingual, unafraid.

I took Hana to the International District on Saturday — our regular trip now, weekly, to H Mart for groceries and to the Korean bakery for pastries and to the bookshop for Korean children's books. She walks through the ID holding my hand, pointing at everything, saying the words she knows in the language she knows them: "fish" in English, "bap" in Korean, "more" in both. The ID is her neighborhood as much as Wallingford is. The ID is where Hana will grow up understanding that Korean food is not exotic — it is ordinary. It is Tuesday. It is what we eat.

Banchan Labs: 5,800 subscribers. Yuna has streamlined operations to the point where James and I can focus almost entirely on growth and product. We are discussing expanding beyond meal kits: Jisoo's kimchi, jarred and sold under the Banchan Labs brand. The idea came from customer requests — hundreds of emails asking if we sell the kimchi separately. I called Jisoo. I said, "People want your kimchi." She said, "My kimchi is for family." I said, "Umma. They feel like family. The people who buy our boxes — they feel like your family." She was quiet. Then she said, "Send me the jars. I will send you the recipe proportions for larger batches. We will make my kimchi for everyone." The kimchi is going commercial. Jisoo's family kimchi, scaled for five thousand families. The thread extends.

The recipe this week is Jisoo's kimchi — the version we are scaling, the version that will be in jars on shelves, the version that started in a Busan apartment and is now in a SoDo warehouse. The recipe is the same. The scale is different. The love is the same. The love does not diminish when multiplied. The love multiplies.

We are scaling Jisoo’s kimchi — sending it out into the world in jars — and all I can think about is the ingredient at the center of it all: cabbage. Humble, sturdy, transformable cabbage. While we wait for the first commercial batch to ferment, I have been roasting it, simply, the way you roast something when you want to understand it before you complicate it. Roasted Cabbage & Onions is not kimchi — it is the thing that exists just before kimchi, the ingredient in its most honest form, and eating it this week felt like a quiet act of reverence for everything Jisoo built from something so ordinary.

Roasted Cabbage & Onions

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 35 minutes | Total Time: 45 minutes | Servings: 4

Ingredients

• 1 small head green cabbage (about 2 lbs), cut into 1-inch wedges
• 2 medium yellow onions, cut into 1/2-inch wedges
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes (optional)
• 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
• Fresh parsley or green onions, for garnish

Instructions

1. Preheat oven. Heat oven to 425°F. Line a large rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper or lightly oil it.
2. Prepare the vegetables. Cut the cabbage into wedges, keeping the core intact so the leaves hold together. Cut the onions into similar-sized wedges. Arrange both in a single layer on the prepared baking sheet — do not overcrowd, or they will steam instead of roast.
3. Season. Drizzle the olive oil over the cabbage and onions. Sprinkle with salt, pepper, garlic powder, and red pepper flakes if using. Toss gently to coat, then spread back into a single layer.
4. Roast. Roast for 20 minutes, then flip each wedge carefully with a spatula. Return to the oven and roast for another 12–15 minutes, until the edges are deeply caramelized and the cut surfaces are golden brown.
5. Finish. Remove from the oven and drizzle the apple cider vinegar over the hot vegetables. It will sizzle and lift the caramelized bits. Toss once more.
6. Serve. Transfer to a platter and garnish with fresh parsley or sliced green onions. Serve warm as a side dish alongside rice, grilled proteins, or any banchan spread.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 140 | Protein: 2g | Fat: 10g | Carbs: 12g | Fiber: 4g | Sodium: 370mg