aespa’s Winter Shocked Everyone on ‘Please Take Care of My Refrigerator’ — Her Grandma-Style Food Choices Are Everything

The moment aespa’s Winter opened her refrigerator on JTBC’s Please Take Care of My Refrigerator, the internet collectively lost it. Fans expected the picture-perfect SM idol to pull out smoothie packs and protein bars. What they got instead? Fermented soybean paste, pumpkin leaves, pickled bean leaves, and a parade of deeply Korean home-style side dishes that had the show’s chefs doing double takes. The July 5, 2026 episode quickly became a trending topic well beyond the aespa fandom, with the phrase “grandma taste” lighting up real-time search charts across Korean portals — and reminding everyone exactly why cooking variety shows still hit differently.

The Great Refrigerator Reveal — Fermented Paste, Pumpkin Leaves, and Pickled Bean Leaves

Before the episode aired, viewers were placing their bets on a clean, protein-forward fridge. They were spectacularly wrong. Winter opened her refrigerator to reveal a lineup of rustic, fermented, and deeply earthy Korean comfort foods that you’d more likely find at a grandmother’s house than in an idol’s apartment. She explained it herself without a hint of embarrassment: “I love eating steamed pumpkin leaves with rice and thick doenjang paste. I’m into savory flavors — doenjang jjigae, cheonggukjang, kong-guksu. I guess my palate is a little… grandma-style.” The studio erupted when she described eating pickled bean leaves wrapped around plain white rice as a full, satisfying meal. Perhaps the most wholesome detail of all? Most of those side dishes were lovingly packed and sent by her mom.

Eating Rice Cakes While Waiting for Delivery, and Making Malatang at Home to Save Money

The surprises didn’t stop at fermented pastes. When rice cakes appeared from the fridge, Winter had a perfectly relatable explanation: “I order delivery a lot, but I’m impatient — I can’t just sit there and wait. So I snack on rice cakes in the meantime. And if I get full halfway through a meal, I take a break and come back to it later.” That alone sent the studio into fits of laughter. Things got even more endearing when malatang ingredients turned up. Rather than splurging on expensive restaurant delivery, Winter revealed she buys her own ingredients and cooks it at home: “Delivery gets pricey, so I just buy the noodles myself and throw them in.” Behind the sleek stage presence and flawless performances is, apparently, a girl eating mom’s side dishes, munching on rice cakes between delivery waits, and making budget malatang in her own kitchen. That gap — between idol image and genuine, unpolished everyday life — is exactly what made this episode resonate so widely. It also signals a shift in how idol variety show appearances are landing with audiences: the more real, the better.

Rejected by SM Three Times — and Totally Unbothered About It

Winter’s candid refrigerator wasn’t the only thing generating buzz. Her off-the-cuff honesty throughout the episode was equally entertaining. She casually dropped the fact that she auditioned for SM Entertainment three times before finally making it in — and then immediately delivered the perfect punchline: “Meanwhile, Karina unnie got a DM from SM first. She was chosen by SM. I chose SM.” The contrast got a huge laugh from the panel. Winter also revealed that chef Kwon Seong-jun, one of the show’s regulars, had previously taught her to cook — and that she came on the show partly to find herself a new culinary mentor. That little cliffhanger had viewers even more invested in watching the episode unfold.

Why Please Take Care of My Refrigerator Is Having a Major Moment Again

The show’s revival didn’t happen by accident. Following the massive global success of Black and White Chef on Netflix in 2024, and with the original series hitting its 10th anniversary, Season 2 was greenlit and it hit the ground running. The current lineup features eight resident chefs — Choi Hyun-seok, Kim Poong, Jung Ho-young, Yoon Nam-no, Park Eun-young, Kwon Seong-jun, Sam Kim, and Son Jong-won — with special guest chefs dropping in periodically. The timing is no coincidence: Black and White Chef reignited mainstream appetite for chef-driven content, and Please Take Care of My Refrigerator was perfectly positioned to catch that wave.

• Choi Hyun-seok — The undisputed king of the show, blending sharp Italian technique with natural variety show charisma
• Jung Ho-young — The Korean cuisine specialist who won over the aespa fanbase by naming a dish “Sususususu-tadon” after aespa’s hit “Supernova”
• Kwon Seong-jun — Winter’s own cooking teacher, a Korean cuisine powerhouse with serious technical chops
• Son Jong-won, Yoon Nam-no, Sam Kim — The French and Italian anchors keeping the Season 2 lineup well-rounded and reliably excellent

Winter also announced she’d be personally awarding two titles to the chefs by the end of the episode — the “Ultimate Fan Award” and the “SM Vibe Award” — which kept the atmosphere playful and warm from start to finish. That easy chemistry between guest and chefs is the secret sauce that has always made this show work.

How to Get the Most Out of Please Take Care of My Refrigerator

If you’re new to the show, don’t make the mistake of treating it like a straightforward cooking competition — you’ll miss the whole point. The real magic happens when a refrigerator swings open and suddenly reveals who a person actually is when no one is watching. Discovering that Winter, one of K-pop’s most visually striking performers, is secretly a devotee of fermented pastes and mom’s homemade side dishes is the kind of moment the show was built for. Layer on top of that the genuine pressure of watching a chef turn random, mismatched ingredients into something extraordinary in just 15 minutes, and you’ve got television that’s hard to look away from.

• Season 1 and Season 2 are available to stream on the JTBC app, Wavve, and Netflix
• New episodes air every Saturday at 8:50 PM KST on JTBC
• Highlight clips are uploaded to the official JTBC YouTube channel shortly after broadcast — great for catching up on the best moments without committing to a full episode

Winter’s “grandma taste” refrigerator was more than a funny reveal — it was one of the most honest, human moments an idol has had on variety television in a while. It exposed the gap between the image we project onto stars and the genuinely ordinary, comforting lives they actually live. And as always, the chefs took those humble ingredients and did something remarkable with them. If you’re even a little curious what you can cook with fermented soybean paste and pumpkin leaves, the July 5th episode is absolutely worth your Saturday night.

Sources

• Winter’s Refrigerator Full of Pumpkin Leaves, Bean Leaves, and Fermented Paste.. “Grandma Taste” [Please Take Care of My Refrigerator] — Star News Korea
• Winter: “I Failed the SM Audition 3 Times — Karina Was DM-Cast” [Please Take Care of My Refrigerator] — Star News Korea
• aespa’s Karina & Winter “We’re Planning to Go All Out” — Hint at Surprising Food Tastes — Sports Khan
• Please Take Care of My Refrigerator Continues — Karina & Winter Set to Appear — Star News Korea