Kevin

Finally, we have arrived at Kevin. Basically the curator of my Oakland life. Host of all the chaotic crossover bashes - always supplemented with Korean tacos. Our curious gem, and my original tent buddy. Kevin identifies as Korean American, and I met him while oyster shucking at the farmer's market, and what was meant to be a big group activity ended up being just me, our mutual friend Jesse, and Kevin.

pc. Joyce

Two Kevin + food things I'll never erase from my memories: yogurt in a bag while camping and dumping the duck fat down the drain after making confit *sobbing emoji*. But something I feel I've only recently fully understood is his love for all things peanut butter. When Joyce and I reunited with him for the first time after pandemic lockdown, he reminded us all of the magic that is a peanut butter and jelly sammich.

He actually used to pretend he didn't have lunch money in school because they gave free Smucker's pbj sammiches to those students.

So it was only fitting that peanut butter be a major ingredient in Kevin's buns. Kimchi jjigae was also a staple childhood item that Mom made all the time, which continued even when Kevin came home after he went off to college. Kevin's buns are filled with pork belly pieces stewed in gochujang, gochugaru, soy sauce, sesame, garlic and scallions... and peanut butter and apricot jam. I left out the kimchi because I wasn't entirely sure how the intensity of gochujang would play with the unmistakeable flavor of peanut butter. But it all came together amazingly well. Turns out peanut butter really does go well with everything.

And as a bonus, I attempted to shape them into Smucker's Uncrustables - do you see it? Did it translate?? Eh, well I tried.

The first pbj recipe was published in 1901 by Julia Davis Chandler in the Boston Cooking School Magazine of Culinary Science and Domestic Economics (what a title). But it didn't become popular for the masses until WWII (this feels like a common food trend) as both peanut butter and jelly were ration menu items for soldiers. It was maybe a natural pairing - high protein peanut butter + sweet jelly + shelf stable ingredients + quick to make + easy to transport. It makes sense then that even after the war, people continued to make and eat this iconic sammich. It's even a superstitious staple in the NBA.

The simple ingredients, though, had to be there before the final sammich could come together. Sliced bread is a great thing indeed - Otto Frederick Rohwedder invented the bread slicer at a time when bakeries were not convinced people wanted pre-sliced bread. Jelly started out as Grapelade, a puree of Concord grapes that was introduced by Paul Welch. Peanut butter was known as peanut paste, one of the many uses for peanuts proposed by Dr. George Washington Carver. Though it existed before that as a solution for geriatric patients who had trouble swallowing. And fine tuning it into the thick and creamy jarred stuff we know it to be today required the invention of a peanut mill and the discovery as hydrogenation as a method to prevent it from separating.

Side note: another Kevin trademark is that he insists on roasting anything and everything we set out on the buffet table over the fire. He is rarely wrong, but I won't think about how many items we've lost to the ashes.

pc. Emily

Things I would do differently: use fresh stone fruit to bring out more fruity jammy flavor.

Kevin's complete list:

cheetohs

war heads

welch's gummies

white rabbit candies

kimchi jjigae

smucker's pbj

peanut butter things - reese's, pb pretzels, pbj sammiches, pb with banana

fries dipped in wendy's frosties

dairy queen and cold stone

pho from parents' restaurant