MARJA VONGERICHTEN is the host of the new PBS television docu-drama “Kimchi Chronicles” ,  in which Marja teaches and shares the tastes and the love of her mother country with  the rest of the world.  The series is described as a personal “documentary/travelogue/cooking show all in one”.

Marja was a 1970s G.I. baby—born to a black American G.I. and a Korean mother. Her mother gave her up for adoption at the age of 3, and Marja went on to grow up in McLean, Virginia, as a typical American kid eating at Wendy’s and Arby’s, without much interaction with Korean culture or cuisine. Once Marja went off to college, however, she decided that it was time to find her birth mother. With support from her adoptive parents, she called the Korean embassy.  Three months later, she received a call providing the contact information for her biological mother. It turned out Marja’s mother had moved to America six years after Marja was adopted. She was married to another U.S. soldier and was living in Brooklyn.  Marja worked up the nerve to call and introduce herself after hours of debating.   Marja now meets her mother every Monday for noraebang (Korean karaoke) night, but she still remembers with great emotion the first time she visited her mother’s Brooklyn home when she was 19.

Marja has come full circle with her new TV series and her subsequent cookbook “The Kimchi Chronicles: Korean Cooking for an American Kitchen” which released  on August 2nd. “I hate to say that I’m half and half, because I’m 100 percent Korean and 100 percent African American. I’m both now, equally,” she said. “After these series, I feel more connected than ever to my culture.” Marja is married to three-star Michelin chef, Jean-Georges Vongerichten, and has a 10-year-old daughter, Chloe.