From cartoonist to amateur TV cook
Published: 24 Feb. 2015, 20:28
Web cartoonist Kim Poong majored in animation. By Kwon Hyuk-jae
Amid the numerous cooking- and dining-centered TV programs, the relatively new “Please Take Care of My Refrigerator” from JTBC has stood out for being fresh and interesting. In each episode, the six chefs on the show literally bring a refrigerator from a guest’s house into the studio then compete to create a dish using only the ingredients in the refrigerator in 15 minutes.
The chef who makes the dish the guest prefers wins. The six veteran and amateur chefs who participate in the program create simple and delicious food with the ingredients at hand. In some episodes, they must cook with cheap instant or preserved food, while in others they are luckier. In the fridge of actress So Yoo-jin, who is married to famous chef Baek Jong-won, they found expensive, rare ingredients.
But not all of the chefs on the program are professionals. Entertainer-actor Hong Seok-cheon participates because he owns several restaurants in Itaewon and helps create the menus. But it came as a surprise when web cartoonist Kim Poong joined the team of chefs.
Although he doesn’t put out dishes that look high-end like the professionals, viewers like Kim for his unprofessional cooking. He shows off easy steps using ordinary ingredients to make meals that could be replicated by people who live alone.
“Viewers say they feel like they’ve won the competition when they see Kim Poong beat all the other professional chefs,” said producer Sung Hee-seong. “I think most men who live alone root for Kim Poong to win.”
The 37-year-old web cartoonist said his interest in cooking began after he moved out of his parent’s house when he was in his early 30s.
“I ate out mostly at first,” Kim said. “But this pizzeria that I went to almost every day closed down. I asked for a recipe and the chef gave it to me as I was a frequent customer. So I tried making the pizza at home for the first time in my life. To my surprise, it tasted very similar to the pizza I’d been eating at the pizzeria.”
At that time, SNS was becoming popular in Korea. So Kim took a picture of his first-ever homemade pizza and uploaded it online after purchasing a “fabulous looking plate” to put it on, Kim said, adding that the response was hugely positive.
“The desire of wanting something disappears when you buy something you really want,” he said. “But cooking is different. Once you familiarize yourself with it, you can make your own meals anytime you want.”
Kim Poong’s “History of a Loser” series, which he updates every Friday on Naver.
He has never taken cooking lessons and instead learned from blogs and YouTube.
“You can obtain thousands of recipes on YouTube,” Kim said. “Once I pick a dish, I watch at least 10 video clips of chefs making the dish. They use their own style and methods but once you watch about 10, you realize the basics that all the chefs follow. So when I cook, I try to follow all the intersections and change other steps to complement my own style.”
Kim’s habit of getting almost addicted to one thing once he finds it interesting led to his cooking craze, but now he has no time to cook. He is busy creating a webtoon series, which loosely translates to English as “History of a Loser,” that he uploads each Friday on Naver. When he was in his 20s, Kim became famous for his webtoon series portraying the culture of Internet addicts.
“I was lucky but I guess I thought that it was my talent,” he said. After getting a taste of success, Kim looked into other careers besides drawing, including acting in a small play in Daehangno and appearing as an extra in a film.
“I tend to be infantile and make bad choices, then realize that I should’ve made a different choice,” Kim said. So he made up his mind to stick to drawing webtoons.
“It didn’t happen but I prepared for two years to publish a webtoon series in Japan,” Kim said. “I received feedback from a Japanese editor and made corrections again and again. I think I learned a lot during that time.”
Kim said he prepared for “History of a Loser” for more than a year before it was published. The cartoon tells the story of four male students who are university freshmen in the late 1990s. The series gets its name because they act like losers when dating girls, he said.
“The webtoon is my commitment to be honest,” said Kim. “As the story deals with university guys trying to win a girl’s heart, the characters in the webtoon somewhat portray my characteristics.” Kim writes the story and the drawing is done by his college friend, cartoonist Shim Yoon-su.
For Kim, creating webtoons is “like marrying his first love.” Cooking, he added, feels like he’s “still dating.
“That’s why I am more careful,” Kim said. “I know I do quite well but I don’t want to learn it professionally. Once I do, I am afraid I might lose interest and so many viewers, especially single men living alone, who have been identifying with me, will say that I’ve changed.”
When producer Sung of JTBC’s “Please Take Care of My Refrigerator” once jokingly said Kim Poong becomes so serious when he is cooking and seems like he is losing track of his original intention, Kim said he was shocked and decided to “stick to my guns.”
“When I start cooking, I unconsciously become so serious and put in my best effort,” he said. “But that’s not my style. I can be a little clumsy and unprofessional like ordinary people.”
BY LEE HOO-NAM [[email protected]]
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
To write comments, please log in to one of the accounts.
Standards Board Policy (0/250자)