Easy Early Summer Stew: Kimchi Jjigae

In the Pacific Northwest, early summer and late spring can feel like fraternal twins. So much alike and yet, at the same time, so different. Just as you're ready to toss your hoodies and jeans into the bottom drawer of the dresser until you reluctantly dig them out again in the fall, a cool maritime front blows in from the coast causing the mercury to plummet 20 degrees. In cases like that—and I'm not speaking hyperbolically, since today's 94 degrees is predicted to be a cool 75 tomorrow—it's wise to have a good soup recipe sequestered in your back pocket when the chillier of our early summer twins is in residence. Luckily for me, I found an extra jar of my favorite local kimchi hanging out in the back of the fridge (we're out of my homemade kimchi, a situation soon to be remedied in about a month when Napa cabbage is available at the farmers' market) along with a tub of local Ota tofu and just enough leftover roasted chicken to shred into it. Oddly, in searching through recipes…