My friend, Cheryl, came for a visit last month.
Have I written much about Cheryl? She and I have been friends since sixth grade.
As far as our food origin stories go, we have completely opposite backgrounds.
Cheryl loved food and cooking at a young age. She had grandmothers who cooked. Not only cooked, but gardened and canned and preserved and pickled and…you get the idea.
If you’re a regular reader here, you know that I barely ate anything as a child and had zero interest in cooking. Both of my grandmothers, well, to put it politely, stunk at cooking.
When I finally found a passion for food and attended culinary school, Cheryl and I started turning our visits into mini food festivals, usually planning a big food project to tackle together.
This spring visit, we wanted to make ramen.
After some reading and research, we used this recipe as our guide. Before she arrived, I made sure to save some extra carcasses from rotisserie chicken nights. I bought pork shoulder. I already had onions, ginger, garlic, and sake on hand. I found pig trotters at my local Publix, not as difficult as I anticipated. (We discovered later that neither one of us took a photo of those. You’re probably relieved.)
Cheryl arrived around lunchtime on a Friday. Seventy-two steps and almost three days later, we had bowls of delicious ramen.
But seriously, it was worth every minute.
We headed to the Asian grocery to buy red miso, enoki mushrooms, Thai red bird chiles, and GF rice noodles for Cheryl. Then we got to work.
For Christmas, G bought a huge pot to add to my kitchen equipment inventory. This is just what I had in mind for it.
While the stock simmered and simmered and simmered, we prepared some of the garnish, steaming bok choy and marinating soft-boiled eggs.
After straining the stock and simmering again, we browsed cookbooks I borrowed from the library and sipped iced tea on the lanai.
Finally, we boiled our noodles and assembled our homemade ramen. The aroma of the ramen broth had been intoxicating G for hours by now. Sunday dinner! Tableware courtesy of Cheryl’s generosity.
I don’t think I’ve ever had broth that tasty in my life. The shredded pork? I’d eat that for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for days.
The three of us scooped and slurped in silence, praising the ramen gods.
Not only did we dine on our ramen, Cheryl and I stopped at an Italian market and found a Polish bakery loaded with items we both recognized from our Eastern European grandparents.
As usual, our visit was a whirlwind and we can’t wait to see each other again. What should our next project be?
Thanks again for reading. I care about you. Don’t forget to eat your greens.
I’ll eat my greens!!!!
Oooh. We need to write about some of our past projects and culinary adventures too! So fun! Paella, whole fish, olive oil gelato….california….
I do feel like this literally had 72 steps but it was amazing. So find a friend and visit and make this ramen!
Future projects…. Lobstah, clam chowdah, gluten free pasta
making, cioppino (like perfecting it), Indian food…..