It was always part of the plan to hire a Clifton student or two to work at the farmers’ market. The way Jieun Beth, owner and founder of Kimchi Rók sees it, hiring a Clifton Career Development School culinary arts student has multiple benefits. Not only will it free up time for her and her spouse to expand the company’s reach, “it will help us bring in more revenue, which means we can hire more students and grow together symbiotically.”
Growing Together
During their last three years in high school, Austin ISD students can attend specialized career technical education classes at Clifton CDS, located in Coronado Hills. They are bused from their home campuses for a half-day block on alternating days and receive instruction in a variety of subjects, including welding, plant science, early learning (child care), health care, and hospitality, including culinary arts. Clifton’s culinary program is already relatively well known, having offered Friday luncheons to the public for several years; the lunches, which cost $9, feature an entrée, sides, and a dessert all scratch-made by Clifton students, and often feature vegetables grown on-site in the school’s small garden.
Tatiana Antonio, the culinary arts teacher at Clifton CDS, reckons that about a quarter of her students pursue culinary school and jobs in the food industry. “A lot of kids will join the program because they just want to learn how to cook for themselves. And you know, it’s fun and they like eating, too. I have to tell them it’s Culinary Arts, not Eating Arts,” she laughs.
In the second year of the culinary program (and most of the other Clifton programs as well), Antonio explains, students participate in on-site or off-site internships to gain work-related experience. This year, one of the internships available to culinary students is with Kimchi Rók, a small cottage food operation that sells a variety of kimchis at the SFC Farmers’ Market at Sunset Valley on Saturdays.
“I first heard about the school from my friend, who was a special ed teacher,” says Beth. She wanted to work with students with special needs, share her cultural expertise in Korean cuisine, and work together to possibly employ some Clifton culinary students.
In October 2022, Beth started working with Clifton students, spending Tuesday mornings teaching them the basics of making kimchi and developing a new product for market: kimchi mandoo (dumplings). After months of trial and error, Beth launched the mandoo at the farmers’ market in February. She donated part of her sales of the mandoo back to the school. “Students have learned so much from her,” says Antonio. “It has been an incredible and unique experience for [them].
“A lot of kids will join the program because they just want to learn how to cook for themselves. And you know, it’s fun and they like eating, too. I have to tell them it’s Culinary Arts, not Eating Arts.” – Clifton Career Development School teacher Tatiana Antonio
“Some of our other internships with other businesses are a lot of production. They go in, it’s not a give-and-take. It’s not like, ‘Oh, we want your feedback on a recipe.’ It was just like, you know, ‘Go chop these 55 onions.’ It’s been very different with this experience because it’s been very symbiotic. So she can never leave,” Antonio laughs.
Long and Winding Road
Beth was born in College Station, but moved with her family to Southern California when she was a toddler, then to Seoul, South Korea, when she was 6. Upon returning to North America in middle school, her path wound from Vancouver to Savannah, finally landing in Austin, where she earned a Master of Fine Arts in studio art at the University of Texas.
Beth’s primary identity is as a visual artist, having exhibited nationally and internationally. From 2018 to 2022, she served as the inaugural exhibit coordinator at the Austin Central Library, building an exhibition program from the ground up, curating 50 exhibits and seven public artworks while working as the director, curator, installer, and administrator. She has also served as an educator and mentor, always with an emphasis on serving her community.
She came up with the idea for Kimchi Rók in 2017, but it wasn’t until the Texas Legislature updated the Cottage Food Law in 2019 that she took action. “As I was considering this business, I didn’t want it to be just about profit,” Beth explains. “I really wanted to bring in that social impact. My mom made really, really good kimchi. It’s kind of uncommon for somebody to make their own kimchi because it’s a lot of work. So when I left my previous job, I [asked myself], ‘How can I [highlight an] underrepresented community?’ I thought about mothers, how they can often be forgotten with their hard work and all the things they do for the family.”
“I think her kimchi recipe is kind of interesting; it’s different from some of the other ones out there,” says Antonio.
“My mom made really, really good kimchi.” – Kimchi Rók owner Jieun Beth on her culinary inspiration
“My mom never used sugar in the kimchi,” Beth explains. Sugar precipitates the fermentation process, giving bacteria the fuel it needs to preserve the veggies. “She used Asian pears, but they’re very expensive here, so we use apples instead.” Beth also uses kombu as a flavoring agent instead of MSG, a common ingredient in commercial kimchi. As a result, Beth says, “the whole jar itself is really healthy for you.”
Kimchi Rók kimchi, which Beth debuted at the Sunset Valley farmers’ market in October 2020, comes in three standard varieties, all sharing the same building blocks of napa cabbage, Korean radish, chile pepper, and onion: traditional, vegan, and “funky,” which has been aged for three months. (Sometimes there’s also an “extra funky,” aged six months, available.) And as of March 2023, market shoppers can purchase kimchi pork mandoo and bulgogi kimchi fried rice, both developed in collaboration with Clifton culinary students. What’s more, shoppers at the Sunset Valley farmers’ market can purchase those items from Logan Nicolosi, Kimchi Rók’s first Clifton hire.
Preparing for Launch
It’s the day of the Austin Council of PTAs luncheon, and the Clifton Cafe is bustling. Teenagers hustle between tables, straightening inverted drinking glasses on top of black tablecloths and placing platters of gluten-free Mexican wedding cookies alongside baskets of multicolored morning glories, left over from the school’s plant sale a few days prior. Pastel-colored balloons float above the scene, anchored on tables and carts.
“Where’s Logan?” hollers Antonio, scanning the room for her student.
“Right here,” a deep voice responds from across the room. Logan Nicolosi strides across the room, his street clothes covered by a pristine black apron. At around 6 feet tall, he towers over just about everyone in the room, including the adults. A black baseball cap provides cover for his hair and dramatically hoods his light blue eyes. Nicolosi, in his second year in the Clifton culinary program, has found a springboard into a future career, thanks in part to the partnership with Kimchi Rók.
At the outset of the collaboration, Nicolosi conducted independent research and started experimenting with his own kimchi fried rice recipe, distinguishing himself as just the kind of go-getter Beth was looking to bring into her kimchi community.
“He’s always showing off his skills. He inspired our bulgogi sauce,” says Beth. “I wanted to combine bulgogi and kimchi fried rice. Logan came up with this sugar-and-soy-sauce-based sauce that is basically bulgogi sauce; it goes well with the kimchi fried rice.”
Nicolosi completed his training at the farmers’ market in March; Beth plans to hire more Clifton students moving forward. “We are grateful [to have] Logan, as we can now expand to participate in additional markets like the Downtown SFC Market and also use the time to make more inventory to supply to local shops,” she says. “We wish our business will grow to provide job opportunities to people that appreciate the tradition of our artisan kimchi and Korean food.”
Nicolosi, who has wholly embraced the creativity inherent in recipe testing and experimentation in the kitchen, will graduate from Eastside Early College High School next month and wants to pursue cooking as a career. But first, he plans to spend the summer working at the farmers’ market, in addition to working a full-time food industry job. Come October, he plans to join the Navy so that he can work as a culinary specialist and earn scholarships that will help subsidize his post-military culinary education.
“I think if you are in AISD, you should definitely try and join Clifton. And it’s not like a, you know, survival-of-the-fittest kind of thing,” says Nicolosi. “It’s more like we work together to develop all these amazing recipes and such. You get your food handler’s [card], so you can start working in fast food or an actual cooking job. It’s a lot of fun, but it is hard work.”
Find Kimchi Rók online at kimchirok.com and at SFC Farmers’ Market at Sunset Valley (3200 Jones) from 9am to 1pm most Saturdays. Follow Clifton Career Development School on Facebook (fb.com/cliftoncdsaustin) to learn more about its community lunches, plant sales, and more.
This article appears in April 14 • 2023.