I've seen some pretty bizarre drinks in my time, but InventorSpot.com's Soft Drink Hell of Fame inductees may top just about anything we've shared on these virtual pages to date. Joe already pointed us in the direction of Pepsi Ice Cucumber a few days ago, and though it made this list as well, is definitely the most normal beverage of the bunch. So without further ado...

For those of you concerned about your weight, fear not! - Diet Water is now available on the shelves. You know, as opposed to the regular, calorie-laden bottles of water that we all consume daily. (Half of nothing is still nothing, right?) If plain water isn't exciting enough for you, then you could also purchase Water Salad - the brainchild of a little beverage company called Coca-Cola. Like they say at InventorSpot - is this the stuff that is left over in your salad spinner?

Next up is Coolpis and Calpis. (Yes, just sound them out.) Though the names alone are enough to keep me away, Coolpis is actually a Kimchee-flavored beverage. Now I love Kimchee - but in a drink?

For those of you hardcore gamers out there working up a sweat rolling 16-sided dice, Final Fantasy has released their own line of potions drinks so you can quench your thirst as you play along.

There are many, many more, believe it or not, including Mother's Milk (complete with a picture of a breastfeeding child on the carton) and KidsBeer - yes, KidsBeer - which you can find over at their site.

(thanks, Michelle!)
Images via InventorsSpot.com

If there's one food I couldn't live without, it's kimchee. It makes sense, since I'm Korean and all. And you would think that 1) being Korean and 2) it being my favorite food, I would know how to make the spicy, pickled cabbage, but I don't. I'm sure I could read a "recipe" and do it, but unlike other "packaged" foods, kimchee from the store tastes pretty damned good. You see y'all, making kimchee is a major to-do, and it's so much easier to just run out to a local Asian market and buy the stuff already made.

That is why I just about fell over when I read that Barbara of food blog Tigers & Strawberries made kimchi at home. Her post has written and photographic detail of the whole stinky, spicy process, from raw Napa cabbage to the final full bottle of kimchee that's fermented for three days.

If you live on either coast, or even in the Midwest in a major metropolitan area, you'll have no problem finding an Asian grocery store. Korean-specific markets are a little harder to find, and if you're somewhere where there isn't a huge population of Korean people, well, you might find yourself at a loss when a craving for kimchee strikes. You can make it yourself, or you can click over to koaMart, an online Korean food grocer.

Sure, they do the dry, non-perishable goods like ramen and rice, but they can send perishable goods like tofu and kimchee as well. I've never shopped at the store since I live in Los Angeles, but if I were in say, the mountains of Colorado (or really, really lazy) I might give them a try. Shipping isn't cheap, but hey, when you need your pickled, fermented cabbage, you gotta do what you gotta do.

Remember when the news broke out that kimchee, the stinky, spicy, fermented cabbage from Korea, might aid in fighting the bird flu? I bet half the people who read the news went out and bought a giant jar of the stuff. But unless you're Korean and you eat kimchee with every meal (even breakfast!), you probably still have more than half of that jar left, slowly ripening away in the back of your fridge. Before long, it'll be kimchee wine, which sounds absolutely...gross.

Fret not, kimchee freaks. Rachael, of the food blog Fresh Approach Cooking, has taken kimchee and made it into a pasta salad! Normally, I bristle at "fusion," but I just can't help but love any idea that incorporates one of my all time favorite foods. Fabulous!

Is it a close-up of a cornflake? Or a piece of coral from the bottom of a tropical sea? Perhaps a tiny nugget of 24 karat gold?

No. No. No. It is from Ideas in Food, and it's what you might call a "cracklin' " - something like a fried pork rind, but better. It is made from kimchee. Inspired first as a child by Cheetos, then "puffed" Japanese snacks and chips, and now professionally by puffs/crisps produced by Grant Achatz at Chicago's Alinea and Ferran Adria of El Bulli, Ideas in Food has created a Kimchee "Cracklin" made from tapioca flour, kimchee, and kimchee juice.

Hey it might not be a real nugget, but kimchee to snack on sure sounds like pure gold to me.

Kimchee bok-keum bahp is a Korean home and café food. At home, it's a way to use up kimchee before it gets too ripe to eat (at which time, it gets dumped into a big pot and turned into kimchee jji-gae). "Bok-keum" means sauteed or fried and "bahp" is steamed rice if you're only halfway through Korean 101. So essentially, kimchee bok-keum bahp is fried rice with kimchee, and yes, all those stories about Asian restaurants - today's leftover rice is tomorrow's fried rice - is totally true and totally applies here.

Here's a nasty little sercret - kimchee bokkeum bahp tastes infinitely better when cooked with chopped Spam, but since I don't ever just have Spam on hand and the point of kimchee bokkeum bahp is to use leftovers, I usually use frozen leftover galbee or bulgogi. Of course, leave all of that out and your kimchee bokeeum bahp can be vegetaarian.

January 29 may be the debut of the Year of the Dog, but I'm quite certain that 2006 will be the Year of Korean Food. It's going to be my personal mission this year to see that red (pepper) will be the new black, Korean barbecue will be the Asian answer to South Beach, and kimchee will be right up there with salsa and sauerkraut. 

If you look on the bottom shelf, toward the back, of any Korean kitchen refrigerator, you will find at least one large jar of kimchee. A house full of Koreans can eat through jar after jar of kimchee, but there may be times when a jar of kimchee lasts a little longer than usual, resulting in kimchee that has pickled to a point that makes even a hard core Korean pucker. The kimchee hasn't gone bad (I doubt that it ever does, with all that salt and red pepper), but it's a little too sour to serve straight up. There are a lot of things to make with over-ripe kimchee. Kimchee jji-gae ("jj" is pronounced somewhere between "j" and "ch") is one of my favorites. Jji-gae is a general Korean term that is similar to a stew served in a hot pot.

Like Mario Batali explains that recipes for the exact same thing varying from house to house in Italy, so does the recipe for kimchee jji-gae differ from one Korean family to the next. Traditionally, kimchee jji-gae is made with pork (that's what my family does), but some use beef, some use Spam (which I just cant bring myself to categorize under "pork"), and others leave their kimchee jji-gae vegetarian and add tofu or nothing at all. You can adjust just about everything in the recipe below from my family.