I’ve been an unabashed meat eater for years now, after a brief faux-vegetarian stint in high school. Sometimes this aspect of my personality is more pronounced than others—I certainly am not someone who demands meat at every meal. But it was especially evident yesterday, when Jason, my friend Barri, and I traveled to North Jersey to attend my aunt and uncle’s annual Ribfest, which also features a pie competition!
My Japanese knowledge is, to be honest, rather limited. I’ve seen Lost in Translation, I love to shop at Daiso (the Japanese $2 store; there are chains in Singapore), I do sushi with some regularity. On a date about 2 years ago we went to a “home-style” Japanese restaurant and both confessed to each other that we had no idea what that was going to mean. (It meant quite a bit of fried food, and rice dishes.)
Oh, and ramen. Right? Those packets? I grew up making “Oodles of Noodles” (which later became Top Ramen, I guess—the packaging is the same) regularly on summer breaks. I have a stash of chicken flavor in the pantry all the time, and since my parents moved to Singapore I’ve discovered the joys of kim chi ramen as well as laksa. Mom even recently sent me a mysterious package of purple noodle ramen. (When I try it that will be another blog post!) That’s ramen, right?
Okay, okay. I know it’s not. Which is why I’ve been itching to try one of the ramen spots in New York. Tonight I finally did!
A friend of mine has started writing a little food column, where she takes a recipe and gives it a try, as a novice cook. She asked me for ideas of what to make—my list included two things that I had actually never made from scratch before: angel food cake and mayonnaise.
Today I crossed one of those off my own personal list.
I’m in the midst of my first-ever self-imposed knitting break. It’s weird to not be picking up the needles during down time, but I’ve been dealing with neck pain since I moved to New York two and a half years ago, and I just needed a break to let things relax. But one benefit of not knitting is the additional time I spend on other pursuits—notably tonight, cooking.
16 
Tags