mmm . . . Korean food is tasty. I've been eating lots of rice these last couple weeks because it's easy to prepare, and it's rather filling. Fortunately, since I'm home, I get lots of "Ban-chan" to eat with my rice. So the article linked to is a bit iffy about what ban-chan's really are - they're really just side dishes served along with rice at most Korean meals. The most common one is probably kimchee. There are lots of types of kimchee, but the most common is probably the spicy pickled cabbage.
Anyway, that's not the banchan that's motivated me to write today. I've been eating a lot of gehn-yeep (note that's my phonetic spelling - looks like other web sites spell it "gaetnip" and Dan said it should be spelled gehn-eep). These are sesame leaves, which are used to wrap around rice. There's a picture here, about half way down the page. While I do like the fresh gaetnip, the stuff I've been having is arguably a form of kimchee, in that it's been pickled and fermented and seasoned with red peppers. Yum.
