SoHui Kim

Executive chef of The Good Fork
Age: 38   City: Brooklyn

When Sohui Kim and her husband quietly opened The Good Fork in 2006, they served about 30 guests—mostly friends and folks in the neighborhood. “It was literally just me in the kitchen with a dishwasher,” says Kim, “and Ben hosting and bartending.”

Weeks later, the little restaurant in Red Hook, Brooklyn was quickly vaulted to culinary fame after glowing reviews appeared in major publications, including the New Yorker and the New York Times. The eatery, which offers Korean-inflected comfort fare, was suddenly feeding more than 100 mouths a night. Kim wondered, “Where are all these people coming from?”

Kim is the executive chef of The Good Fork, and co-owns the restaurant with her husband, Ben Schneider. They live near the biz with their “cute as heck” one-year-old daughter, and are expecting a second child in a few months.

In 2005, Kim was ready to open her own kitchen—envisioning a neighborhood, mom-and-pop bistro. She wanted to work with Korean ingredients, while offering a menu of Italian fresh pastas, French-style sauces and a hefty burger to boot.

Yet Kim emphasizes that her food is not fusion, a type of cuisine that she dubs “confusing, stupid and the dumbest thing ever.” Rather, her cooking offers a twist (or rather, a kick). Take her signature dish: steak and eggs à la Seoul. It’s a skirt steak marinated overnight, spiced with gochujang, then grilled medium rare to tender and moist perfection. “Then I top that sucker with a fried egg,” says Kim.

Other tasty delights: crab cakes, dumplings, and yes, that burger. “It’s a huge honker that’s served on a potato onion roll and served with tempura fried onion rings,” describes Kim.

With her family, Kim moved to the Bronx from Seoul when she was 10. Coming from an academically-driven Korean household, she was law school-bound (natch), but then decided instead to put her nose to the cutting board at Peter Kump’s New York Cooking School (now called the Institute of Culinary Education). Since, she’s worked with a set of renowned chefs that includes Michael Anthony, Dan Barber, Peter Hoffman, and Anita Lo.

As expected, food was a focal point in Kim’s family. “Cooking was in the blood,” she says. Her mother studied culinary arts in Korea, and her late paternal grandmother, who was a devout Buddhist, taught Kim to be frugal, to waste nothing. “I have memories of being with her, gathering crazy weeds, funky fungi, barks and roots,” recalls Kim. “Just eating off the mountain.”

Today, her mother helps Kim make the kimchi served at The Good Fork, and together, they’ll spice up about 60 heads of cabbage at a time. The hubby makes kimchi, too. “I swear,” says Kim, “he was an old Korean woman in a former life.”

When asked why Korean food is so popular these days, Kim says, “Because it tastes so damn good. It tickles all the senses, it’s sweet and salty, and oh my goodness, it’s zingy. And minus the sodium, it’s very good for you, too.”

—Kai Ma

Debbie Lee
Caterer and contestant on The Next Food Network Star
Age: 39    City: Hollywood

Debbie Lee’s culinary creations are what you get when East meets … South?

That’s right. The vivacious kitchen whiz coins her cooking style Seoul 2 Soul: “It’s a little Korean, a little Southern—basically, my life on a plate!”

When her parents emigrated from Korea to the U.S., they happened to land in Jackson, Mississippi, where they learned how to whip up comfort favorites like black eyed peas and grits. That’s what Lee was raised on as a kid in Arizona, where they later settled.

A budding chef from the start (“When my mom would take me to the bookstore at 5 or 6 years old, I always went straight for the cookbooks,” she recalls), Lee was drawn to all different types of food, but felt a particular connection to Korean fare. Her grandmother, barely knowing a lick of English, taught her how to concoct basic staples.

“She’d teach me by using sign language,” Lee explains. “If I’d add the right amount of pepper, she’d say ‘yah.’”

Through these impromptu lessons, Lee gained confidence both in and out of the kitchen.

“Growing up as the only Asian at my school, food led me to like myself,” she says. “Whenever we invited people to our home, we’d have mandu. People were like, ‘Oh, they’re like wontons.’ Food allowed me to engage with my culture and realize I’m not so different from anyone else.”

Lee attended the New England Culinary Institute and after working for established companies like LaFolie, the Ritz Carlton and Marmalade Café, she started her own catering business in Hollywood. Her specialties? Kimchi mashed potatoes, Mama Lee’s chicken and sesame dumplings, bulgeogi burgers. “I’ve come full circle,” she says.

Now, every Sunday night, you can watch Lee compete to become The Next Food Network Star, meaning that if she wins, she’ll get her own cooking show. But for this soulful chef, it’s more than just about the exposure.

“I’m sending a message out there to the Korean community,” Lee says. “You’re American when you land here. Be proud of who you are. This has definitely been a road for me. I don’t want to be anything other than who I am.”

—Michelle Woo

Kelly Choi
Host of Bravo’s Top Chef Masters
Age: 33    City: New York

What does it take to make it as a host? Kelly Choi may be a good case study.

She’s a former model, a Columbia Journalism School grad and a self-described foodie. She’s hosted a series of shows focusing on New York lifestyle, and is now the host of Top Chef Masters, a spinoff of Bravo’s Top Chef.

“That’s my dream job,” she says. “They called me, and I just up and died. Beyond joy. Truly, truly amazing.”

The new show, which premieres June 10, pits established chefs against each other in a series of challenges similar to the type seen on the original show. Television viewers can watch renowned culinary artists sweat over, say, making a palatable dish with $20 of food from a gas station. Opportunities for schaudenfreude abound.

“It takes so much guts to come onto the show,” she says, “because [the chefs] are ridiculously successful already.”

Food has always been Choi’s primary avocation, which she attributes to its important place in Korean culture. She was born in Seoul and grew up in Virginia. After attending journalism school, she began her hosting career on a series of local news and lifestyle shows in the New York area. Choi broke out with Secrets of New York, on NYC-TV, the city’s acclaimed public television station. The show won several regional Emmys and became a hit for the network, garnering enough attention to be syndicated for public television       stations nationwide.

The average episode featured Choi, dressed in trademark vinyl full-length trench coat and stilettos, delivering tidbits of historical information from, for example, the top of the Chrysler Building, or the inside of a subway tunnel. She became a bit of a local celebrity, with New York’s                 blogosphere fueling her fame with comments about her vampy outfits.

After the success of Secrets, Choi says producers from NYC-TV approached her about doing a restaurant-themed show. She jumped at the opportunity.

“I would always be watching the Food Network,” she says. “Then when they asked me if I wanted to create a restaurant show, I couldn’t believe it.” Choi now produces and hosts Eat Out NY. Each episode features a different New York City chef, with whom Choi cooks a meal and comments on its yummyness.

Now that Top Chef Masters is airing and the shooting for the show is complete, Choi is back on NYC-TV, taping more episodes of Eat Out NY. And though we may not have an answer to the question of what makes a successful host, Choi has certainly become one.

—Sung-Min Yi

Suzay Cha
Executive chef at Cicada
Age: 50   City: Los Angeles

A meal made by Suzay Cha is like an expedition on a plate. Her inspiration comes from all parts of the globe.

Born in Seoul and raised in Japan, Cha immigrated to the United States when she was 14 and made herself at home in the melting pot of Los Angeles.

The first English sentence she learned was, “I want to be your friend.” From then on, she spent her life making new friends—and tasting their food. One friend introduced her to the flavors of Puebla, Mexico. Another turned her taste buds onto Jewish cuisine.

“Eating food is like celebrating your senses,” Cha says. “Food has a welcoming spirit. It’s a beautiful feeling.”

Her travels didn’t stop there. She studied French in Paris. She journeyed to northern Japan to learn a special type of cuisine called kaiseki. She headed to China for training in Beijing-style cooking. She was part of an exchange program in Germany.

Wherever she went, she loved inviting people over to enjoy a good meal.

“To me, luxury means creating something for your friends,” she says. “You don’t need to live in a palace to entertain. You don’t need a lot of ingredients to make something special.”

Once Cha settled back in California, she opened a restaurant in Orange County called Mondu Suzay, which specialized in Korean dumplings. Diners could choose from different dipping sauces like chipotle, lemon vinaigrette or miso with honey.

Eventually, a friend introduced her to the owner of Cicada Restaurant in downtown Los Angeles, where she now creates the sophisticated Northern Italian menu. Specialties include the muscovy duck with orange gremolata and grilled jumbo diver scallops.

Whatever Cha makes, she makes with passion.

“Food tastes better when you put your heart in it,” she says.

—Michelle Woo

Corey Lee
Chef  de cuisine at The French Laundry
Age: 31   City: Yountville, Calif.

Since KoreAm last spoke with chef Corey Lee of The French Laundry in Napa Valley, California, he has gone on to win a  prestigious James Beard Foundation honor and been recognized as a rising star chef by the San Francisco Chronicle. But the 31-year-old apparently hasn’t let the recognition get to his head.

“I think you need to find greater and more meaningful ways to calibrate your success and validate your work,” a philosophical Lee told KoreAm last month. He added that while the honors have been flattering, the most important criteria for the restaurant’s success is “pleasing our guests and keeping our staff motivated and inspired.”

If it sounds like Lee has taken a page out of the book of legendary French Laundry founder Thomas Keller, known for his collaborative work style, that’s because he has. And after almost five years as chef de cuisine and eight years working at the French country-inspired restaurant where reservations must be made two months in advance, Lee will be leaving in August to create his own a culinary collaboration—a restaurant in San Francisco.

“It was an ideological decision more than anything else,” says the Seoul-born Lee, who previously worked at top-rated restaurants in London and Paris. “I wanted an opportunity to run a restaurant and offer a style of cuisine and service that truly resonates with me.”

During his time at The French Laundry, where he started as a low-level chef at age 23, Lee says he certainly developed his own personal style, but was always conscious of maintaining the identity of the Michelin three star-rated restaurant—known for its nine-course tasting menu—and of chef/owner Keller.

“My next venture will free me of that responsibility and allow me to express something more personal,” Lee says. But what he won’t discard on this new journey is this lesson: “that a successful restaurant is truly about collaboration, and bringing out the best in your staff.”

—Julie Ha

By Janice Jann   Photographs by Eric Sueyoshi

If anyone knows what it’s like to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes, it’s Una Kim.

After graduating from Princeton University, she found herself clad in stiff heels, working in marketing, branding and trend forecasting in New York City, a world she didn’t belong in.

So she kicked off her pumps and did some sole-searching.

Now she has a career that’s much more her style. Kim is the founder and CEO of Keep, a Los Angeles-based lifestyle company that originated as a women’s skateboarding shoe line and expanded to include men and children’s garments and accessories. The project launched in 2006 out of her frustration with the fact that whenever she wanted to buy cute skateboarding shoes, she had to look in the men’s aisles. Today, Keep is not just a fashion company, but as the website explains, it’s “an amalgam of interests, a way of being, a force, a language, a family and many other things.” All products are cruelty-free (Kim monitors conditions in her factories) and 99 percent vegan.

Lounging about her trendy West Hollywood boutique in a breezy purple sundress and matching Keep sneakers, Kim looks more like a college co-ed than the owner of a burgeoning shoes and apparel company. It’s clear she’s a woman who steps to her own beat.  “I went to Princeton, I went to Stanford,” Kim explains. “I’m like the Korean American immigrant wet dream. I could do anything I wanted and make a ton of money, but I’m really not interested in just making money.”

Growing up in the multifaceted Baltimore with parents who always encouraged and supported her, Kim felt like she had “really rad formative years.” “My mom let me shave my head,” she recalls with a chuckle. “Nowadays, that’s very common, but in the early ‘90’s?” As long as Kim was able to get into Princeton, she was allowed to play in punk-rock bands and skateboard to her heart’s content.

Post-college, feeling uninspired in her New York marketing job, Kim decided to enroll in business school at Stanford University. After earning her MBA, she launched Keep.

“When I first started this business, I was so excited,” she recalls. “I’d be up late in the night planning with all these elaborate decision trees. I’d work all these scenarios out and try to be really prepared, but every week, we’d have a disaster. It was a wake-up call that the world doesn’t exactly do things your way and on your time.”

What Kim can control are her company’s philosophies. Feminist ideals peep through the tongues of the sneakers (priced between $30 and $100), which come in silhouettes such as hi-tops, loafers and skinny slip-ons, and in vibrant prints like argyle, herringbone and plaid. All sizing is in women’s. If men want a pair, they’ll have to do their own math. “I don’t understand why people would trip about that,” Kim muses. “[Converting to guy sizes] is something I’ve had to do my entire life.” The styles are universal, she explains. “There are the hardest thugs in New York who will track down and wear our shoes or 65-year old Korean ajumas who like them ‘cause ‘it’s soft and light.’” Adding to Keep’s list of fans are celebrities such as Jonah Hill, Vanessa Hudgens and Ellen DeGeneres. The company has been featured in Glamour, Lucky, Teen Vogue, Elle, Nylon and Bust magazines.

Most improtantly, Kim wants her company to promote a higher qualtiy of life, whether it be through encouraging people to find daily inspiration (“It’s everywhere. Go to the library. Walk around the city. Take a look around you.”) to raising awareness on cruelty-free and vegetarian products (“I just want to make sure we made our footwear the most conscious way that we could with the resources that we had.”).

For Kim, it’s all about the fit, in business and beyond.

“I just think having balance in your life, making decisions about what you do and being aware of the world is awesome,” she says. “You owe it to yourself, not to anyone else.”

By Kai Ma

After Joseph Han decided to open a longboarding business in Folsom, California, he’d bought a rusty-red Volkswagen bus. The vehicle, purchased last summer for a few hundred dollars, only operated in first and second gears. The paint was badly chipped.

But none of that mattered to the young entrepreneur. Until he could open a physical store, the bus would serve as a promotional vehicle. After naming the company Black Lotus Boards, Han converted his garage into a workspace, spending thousands on woodworking machines to create prototypes for new, more innovative and affordable boards. Once established, he planned to donate longboards to kids.

As for the bus, he began sanding it down, adding black primer, redoing the interior and engine—even purchasing solar panels to add to the roof.

“Folsom is a really hot area,” said Tim Cho, Han’s cousin. “So it’s 105 degrees, but here’s Joe, sanding this car for hours, outside,” adding with a laugh, “It was pretty ridiculous.”

The vintage Volkswagen fit Han’s personality, added Cho, who lives in Mountain View, two hours from Folsom. Han had long hair, listened to Bob Marley. “He looked like an Asian surfer-slash-hippie. He was laid-back—that’s the best way to describe him. He didn’t take anything too seriously. No drama. He went against the grain.”

But less than a year after Han bought his bus, he was dead.

***

On Easter morning of this year, Han, who lived with his parents and 19-year-old brother, was fatally shot by police in his home in Folsom, a suburb east of Sacramento. He was 23 years old.

According to news and police reports, and interviews with cousin Cho, Han was acting unusual the days leading up to April 12, and his family called the Folsom Police Department for help. But the family and police’s accounts of what unfolded inside the home after three officers arrived are very different.

Early last month, the Folsom Police Department released the names of the officers who shot Han: Paul Barber, 32, and Sgt. Ron Peterson, 57, a 27-year veteran of the force. In a public statement, Sgt. Rick Hillman, who heads the department’s professional standards division, said that the police had arrived at the scene at 10:30 a.m. after a family friend, translating for Han’s parents, requested help.

According to Hillman, the caller told police that Han had been hallucinating, hadn’t eaten in several days and was locked in his bedroom with a knife. Hillman’s public account also specified that Peterson, Barber and a third officer entered the house and went upstairs to Han’s “cluttered” nine-foot-by-nine-foot bedroom. Han was standing, holding what police described as a nine-inch folding knife with a 4.5-inch blade. He told an officer to get out of his room or he’d “cut his throat,” Hillman said.

The officer drew a Taser stun gun and told Han to stop. When Han didn’t, the officer fired the Taser, but to no effect. Then, Barber entered the room and fired his Taser, which authorities said was also ineffective. When Han advanced on Barber, the officer fired his handgun, hitting Han in the upper body. Peterson then fired his Taser, but when Han advanced toward him with the knife in his hand, police said, Peterson fired his handgun, striking Han also in the upper body.

Han was transported to the University of California Davis Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.

But Cho’s parents, Young So and Nam Hee Han, and brother, David, dispute police accounts that Han came at them with a knife, according to Tim Cho and Paul Cho (no relation), president of the Korean American Community Association of Greater Sacramento. Both have spoken extensively to the family about what they’d witnessed.

Paul Cho said he and other Korean American leaders in the area approached the Folsom Police Department to demand an explanation, and was told that Han was shot after failing to drop his weapon. “Their argument is weak,” Cho said. “I find it almost impossible to believe. The police acted excessively…that is for sure.”

According to Tim Cho, Han’s behavior in the days leading up to his death was unusual—but nothing that the average person doesn’t experience every once in a while. Though he was eating very little, the reports that he’d stopped consuming entirely and was hallucinating are inaccurate, Cho said.

“He was definitely going through a self-reflection period,” said Cho, of his younger cousin. “But he wasn’t shutting himself out. He met friends for coffee; he talked to his parents in his room. It’s not like he locked himself in and shunned himself from the rest of the world.

“He was reading the Bible a lot those last couple days, trying to understand his faith. He was trying to keep his mind clear.” Cho said that Han’s girlfriend had noticed no signs of depression or abnormal behavior. “Joe was never considered a depressed person,” added Cho. “This behavior—it was just that one week, the three to five days before he died.”

Still, Han’s demeanor was peculiar enough to prompt his mother to seek advice from Cho and others. She wasn’t worried that Han would hurt himself, said Cho, but felt that he was compromising his health by not eating enough. So, acting on the advice of a friend, who said the police could perhaps escort Han to a counseling center or send an officer trained in handling mental disturbances, Han’s mother made the call.

Cho, who arrived at the scene two hours after the shooting, has spoken to the police and questions the validity of their statements. Cho described his cousin’s blade as “any standard pocketknife” and feels the police have been exaggerating its length and size. “Each time I speak to them, the knife gets a half-inch longer,” he said.

Han’s mother and brother were present during the incident. (His father was downstairs until the first shot was fired.) Cho spoke to Han’s brother that Sunday, and to Han’s mother the next day, about what they’d witnessed. “Not a single detail is consistent with what the police reported,” he said.

The family told Cho that Han did not attack the police, but did have a knife and closed his door after asking the police to leave his room. The officers then kicked down the door with their Taser guns drawn, they say. Han was stunned several times, which had no effect on him, and then an officer fired a shot from his handgun. “It went through his chest and into the back wall,” said Cho.

At this point, Han’s mother fainted. An officer grabbed David, Han’s brother, and pushed him into the bathroom so hard that the door broke, the family told Cho. Han’s father attended to his wife. “My aunt and cousin clearly remember that the officer had control of the hand with the knife in it,” said Cho. “Joe did not lunge or make any threatening moves towards the police officers. My best guess is that [the officers’] adrenaline was running and they immediately kicked down the door, instead of taking a moment to evaluate their options.

“There was a struggle and [the police] shot him again. And his life ended there.”

All three officers, who were immediately put on administrative leave, had returned to work as of last month.

The incident occurred a month before another police-involved shooting of a Korean American in California: Susie Young Kim of Irvine led police on a high-speed chase before a Santa Ana officer fatally shot her while Kim’s 13-month-old daughter was in the backseat of the car. And it was two years ago when Michael Cho, a Korean American artist, was shot to death by police in La Habra, California, after authorities said he threatened them with a tire iron.

At the time of this writing, a lawsuit has not been officially filed, but Tim Cho said his cousin’s family plans to sue. John Burris, the Han family’s attorney, is still gathering information on the case, but has run into barriers at the coroner’s office and police department, who have not been turning over officials reports to the family, according to Cho.

In response, Hillman from the Folsom Police Department told KoreAm that the case is still active. “We’ve corresponded with the attorney, and we explained that we do not release reports that are under investigation,” he said. As for why the police accounts are so different from the family’s, Hillman said, “The family has not talked to us and has not provided a statement. We feel for [the family]. We’ve reached out to the family. We don’t know why their account is different because we don’t know what their side of the story is.”

***

Han was born in San Jose, and spent his childhood there. Later, the family moved to Folsom. Han’s mother and Cho’s mother were sisters, and their families saw each other several times a week. (Han’s parents and brother declined KoreAm’s interview requests. Similarly, Han’s girlfriend of several years, who lives in the Bay Area, would decline an interview, Cho said.)

Cho is 28 and his brother is 27. While growing up, Han looked up to his older cousins. “I definitely felt like I had a brotherly role in his life,” said Cho. “There were a lot of things that my brother and I did that Joe would pick up: hockey, guitar. We’d go to the park, the pool, played roller hockey on the street. Those were fond memories.”

The cousins also bonded during family trips. “On the car rides up, Joe would joke about taboo topics and always be the center of laughter,” recalled Cho.  ”That helped to bring our families closer together. He would talk about anything: politics, relationships, skateboarding, adventures.”

Indeed, this adventurous spirit shaped the last few years of Han’s life. He began skateboarding in high school, but eventually shifted into longboarding. This variety of skateboarding “is more about hills and bombing down them and taking turns really fast, so it’s more about speed and getting that adrenaline rush,” descibed Cho, who used to longboard with his cousin. “He was gutsy and passionate. He’d be flying down on a thing piece of wood on four little tires, going 40 miles and hour, and then at the borrom of the hill, he’d make a sharp left turn.

“It gave him a sense of freedom.”

After Han graduated from the University of California, Irvine in 2007 with a degree in criminology, he returned to Folsom. He helped his parents out at their teriyaki fast food business in Roseville. Soon, he eventually began envisioning- then creating- his own enterprise.

A demonstration for Han is being planned in front of the district attorney’s office in Sacramento, and Han’s close friends and a relative still meet every week to organize protests. On May 13, more than 150 people gathered at a demonstration, peacefully demanding justice for Han. As a nod to Han’s life and aspirations, many wore “Black Lotus Boards” T-shirts.

“He had big dreams,” said Cho. “He just never got a chance.”

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