Things we're eating: Ramen Bar

One of our favorite meals around here is something I call Ramen Bar. All I have to do is call out, "Ramen Bar" around dinnertime, and everyone stops what they're doing and comes running. And by 'come running' I mean they actually put their cell phones down and make their way to the kitchen.

When I've mentioned to people that I'm making ramen for dinner, I've gotten some judgy questions: "Is a 25¢ block of noodles really a sufficient meal?" "What about all that sodium? " "You're Asian, isn't ramen for dinner just a cop-out and a cliché?"

Once I've given them some serious side-eye, I explain that this isn't your dorm-room ramen. These are fresh noodles that you purchase from an Asian market, and with a bunch of different toppings – all fresh ingredients – laid out that everyone can choose themselves. My teens and their friends seem to especially like this – it's about time we let them make their own decisions, and there's nothing like being the boss of your soup.

Start with fresh noodles - you can find these in the refrigerated section of most Asian markets. Each package has two servings. Or only one if you want a larger portion. Our local ramen shop offers a 'large order' that comes in a bowl the size of a child's wading pool.

They usually have three different flavors available: Shoyu (soy sauce), Miso and Spicy Sesame. The  flavor refers to the broth packet that comes in the package, but this isn't the usual powder that comes in a foil packet that comes with Top Ramen – it's a liquid, slightly oily paste that you mix with boiling water to make your broth. If you're a purist you can even make your own (here's a good recipe from momofuku) but honestly I've been-there-done-that and the broth that comes with these fresh noodles is really good, so why bother? Use the extra time for sipping some cold saké.

Sidenote: While you're at the Asian market you should really pick up some of these to reward yourelf for all of your hard work:

Back to our ramen: Next, lay out a bunch of toppings. I've used slices of chicken, hard-boiled or fried eggs, tofu, cilantro, basil, sliced jalapeño, shredded cabbage, green onions and lime. This is probably more of a ramen/pho mashup of toppings – more traditional ramen toppings would be bean sprouts, sliced shiitake mushrooms, spinach, nori (seaweed), kamaboko (fish cake) and char siu (barbecued pork.) Really, the sky's the limit – just don't do anything weird like french fries or Oreos because then I'll have to send the Asian police to your door.

The broth concentrate goes into your bowl and covered with boiling water. Meanwhile, cook your noodles for 2 minutes, drain, and serve up into the broth with the toppings nearby. Yell out, "Ramen Bar" and watch your hungry family stampede over. Sort of.

(Not to imply that those store-bought, hard bricks of noodles don't have their place. This video of Hayao Miyazaki making ramen for his staff is one of my favorites. If Top Ramen is good enough for the director of 'Totoro', it's good enough for me.)

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I signed up to do NaBloPoMo (short for National Blog Posting Month) which is an online event where bloggers are challenged to post every single day of the month. This is only my third post out of twelve days, which is bad no matter how you do the math.



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Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?

What's on my mind tonight? Fantasy vs. reality. Mainly, this big box of lies:

I bought this for one of the girls' sleepovers, because what could be more genius than food that comes in its own serving container? Can you imagine the possibilities? What if you could buy a big, juicy steak that came on its own plate and then after you were done stuffing your face with that big animal carcass you could just dump the whole thing in the trash? Isn't that the definition of heaven?

My illusions were shattered, though, when I popped up one of these lying liars and it came out like this:

When I followed the instructions and pulled off the top, the bag ripped and popcorn went flying. Also, if you look at the picture on the box the popcorn is bursting out the bowl, but in reality it is barely 1/3 full. They need to rename this Straight Up Lies Bowl.

Did I eat it? YOU BET YOUR BUTTER-SOAKED FINGERS I DID.



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I just signed up to do NaBloPoMo (short for National Blog Posting Month) which is an online event where bloggers are challenged to post every single day of the month. I started late, but I intend to finish. Only 23 more days to go! Grab some popcorn and pull up a chair.


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Don't come at me with your technology fasts

Don't be frightened children – it's just a cellphone from the '90's.

A few days ago I was trying to send a photo to a friend via text, and my phone died. My phone is old so this has been happening a lot, and I proceeded to do what I do every other time this happened – curse at it, threaten to throw it out the window (because it feels threatened when I say this) and then eat a handful of potato chips to ease my suffering.

Of course, then I had my kumbaya moment where I realize how fortunate I am to be able to take a picture with my phone and then somehow miraculously send it through space to my friend's phone fifty miles away, and I took a step back and just praised science. Then I had another handful of potato chips to calm myself down.

Technology has been daunting to me lately – my phone dies, my computer crashes, my FitBit keeps telling me I'm a lazy bitch – and a friend suggested I join her in a tech fast that she was embarking on. This inhumane endeavor consisted of going three days – cold turkey – without any computer or phone use, except for work or essential activities. This meant no posting on Facebook, sharing pictures on Instagram, conversing on Twitter or texting photos of my cocktail to Rigel.

This sounded like a hell I wanted no part of. Who would validate my feelings about life if I couldn't share them on Facebook? How would I know about world events without my Twitter feed? And without photographing my lunch and then enhancing it with a pleasing filter, DOES FOOD EVEN EXIST AT ALL?

I politely declined to participate in this heinous exercise in self-torture, and it got me thinking about how we all love to demonize technology, although I think there are very few of us who could go without it. Is this just a fad? I can't imagine a farmer in the 1800's declaring that he was going to go on a plow fast, or our parents defiantly announcing that they would go without their toaster oven for an entire seventy-two hours. Come to think of it, I don't remember any one of my friends ever bemoaning the fact that they were becoming overly-dependent on their pager, either.

I'm still going to curse at my phone and threaten to cut my computer if it shows me that goddamn spinning beachball again, and yell – at no one in particular and on a daily basis – "They can put a man on the moon but I can't get a decent WiFi signal in my bathroom?!" But I won't be giving up my technology anytime soon. Come to think of it, not my potato chips, either.
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I just signed up to do NaBloPoMo (short for National Blog Posting Month) which is an online event where bloggers are challenged to post every single day of the month. I joined in around six days in, which means I've already failed before I even started. On the upside, you can come back here everyday for thrilling stories, like this one about my phone.

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