Ben Hollander with Casper Fermentables kombucha at the Mueller Farmers Market (Photo by Jana Birchum)
Ben Hollander grew up eating and preparing a spectrum of Korean food and began his culinary education at age 13 by training under a chef. That chef – his mother – owned a popular udon restaurant in Seoul before relocating to Washington, D.C. Her kimchi and her kombucha were things that really stuck with me when I left to come down here to go to school, Hollander says. I missed that flavor so much and couldn t find anything that was exactly like it or even close to it.