Skip to main content

The art of Ramen

 A bowl of ramen. It is a beautiful thing. When you find an excellent one, the appreciation in your heart can overflow like the flavors that bowl delivers. There was a movie starring the late great Brittany Murphy called Ramen Girl. In it, there was a ramen that would make people cry, as if the sadness of the maker connected to the sadness of the diner and took it away somehow, lovingly, and gently. While I saw the movie as an obvious caricature, there is something to that idea of carrying a connection through these savory bowls of art.


Photo by Cody Chan on Unsplash

 Over the weekend I had the privilege of attending a ramen class. To call it "learning how to make ramen" is perhaps too strong. One class of ramen making is like finding an ice cube on a frozen ground. The ice beneath that is connected to that lone cube is the size of the continent of Antarctica. That contrasts one class of ramen making and the vast knowledge contained within. This class teaches Japanese cooking, words, and stories of these dishes and traditions. 

In class, our wonderful teacher instructs from the food she makes and eats and therefore, from the heart.  She brings so much more value to us than if she recycled culinary school techniques or relabeled restaurant operating procedures. Those can be found in online courses, schools, and on YouTube. Here, we cut through all of that pre-packaged white noise, and get right to the important things.

I have attended this monthly class many times on making Japanese dishes and it works nicely on a schedule. This class ran over in honor of making ramen, appropriately so. Everything was made from scratch, the broth, the noodles, everything. I learned more about the core physics of cooking in this class than all the others I have attended. Here lies the art of ramen, and of life. 

Every baker and pasta-making chef knows, that flour, water, and its companions have a mind of their own. They are unique in their response and attitude. Here is where realities are split like atoms in molecular science. It is here the maker, thanks to the laws of physics appears to be magic or a fraud. The beauty of it is that the experience in this one class is so multi-dimensional in how it mirrors the complex dynamics of life, that I feel that I will be gleaning profound substance from this one day in my life for a long time to come. I am truly fortunate to have found this perfect spot on earth to learn so much. This is what striving for...fighting for taste is all about.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Universal Antagonist

There is an underrated movie from 1967 called “The Presidents Analyst”. It tells the story of a presidents analyst who cannot talk with anyone about what he knows. This creates more anxiety than he can deal with. It leads to catastrophic paranoia. In the meantime, various government agencies are trying to kill him. The phone company (a unit with the same power as Facebook, google, and other large personal data collecting monsters) wants what he knows to further their cause of power. He ends up being  protected by a suburban “Liberal” family that has more guns the the “right wing wackos” they are protecting themselves from. With many crazy mind bending plot twists  that were  common in the movies of the late 60’s, the kind that Austin Powers liked to spoof, in the end, the main character realizes the “it’s the phone company” behind all of the evil in their lives, behind all the evil in the world. Hollywood was serious about their message in an insane package. This movie wa...
Post a Comment
Read more

You try to appear to fit in but not too much, because then you don’t.

It is funny how airports can bring the humanity of humanity to the surface, but also pretend that it is not really there. There is a feeling of aloneness while being immersed in a sea of other people. I feel other people’s emotions without even trying, so this is a very serious thing I experience. It can be hard to sort out, but just like everything else I remember that each of them has their own brand of trivial stress. The trivialness is temporary because when sitting in an airport waiting for a flight, certain daily concerns peel away like an onion skin. This is because mortality gets sprinkled onto our essence like a deep savory spice. It’s just enough to make you appreciate you daily life. I can’t tell you how many times I have looked around at the people at my departure gate and thought, “if this were the series LOST, what roles would each of us take should we end up on that island." Searching faces, I perceive where they fit into the story. This is what happens when you acc...
Post a Comment
Read more

The passing of seasons

  I always thought it would be easier living after the cats were gone. We were always saying that we were not going to do it again. Very smugly taking beautiful things for granted. Even Donna said, we just did not understand how exceptional they were. Lava's final cries in pain were of death itself, I just know it, and they were the most harrowing sound I have ever heard. It tears me to the core.  Doctor House was right though, there   is   no dignity in dying, we all do it alone and it's ugly and horrifically terrible. The only thing we can do is live with dignity.  Our daily numbness makes us not even do that so well. And in Goodbye, Farewell, Amen, there were light points of this and deep ones too. Even in hardship, we can take the good for granted. Hardship, well yes, it can have lasting effects. And that is on a chemical level. I heard a summary of societal decade disintegration. I know this all means something yet I am losing the drive to put the idea into...
Post a Comment
Read more