BEGIN Japanology - The Most Delicious Ramen | Food Production and Preservation | Forums

ashleigh11 said
Hello, my name is Ash and...and...I'm obsessed with Ramen.  There, I said it, let the healing begin.

It all started years ago when I was in college.  I stopped playing soccer, gave up my scholarship, and began paying my own way in life.  I would scrounge money for Ramen, hording the coins from my car cup holders.  My parents enabled my addiction by sending me care packages with Ramen, my mother would slip me bulk packages of Ramen when I would visit home.  

At first I was just a social Ramen eater.  As I descended deeper and deeper into Ramen darkness, I would make them in the middle of the night, I had a stash in my office at work.  I would even eat them as a crunchy snack without cooking them, later feeling the bloat from all that undiluted sodium and MSG.  

Years later, I still eat Ramen, even though I don't need them.  I've just been eating Ramen so long they've become a part of my daily existence. I thought I was cutting back and then I saw this thread on mma.tv

http://www.mixedmart.....2/?pc=3598

I never imagined Ramen with Korean flavors, and then from then on, no vegetable, meat or sauce was safe from being thrown in my Ramen.  

I even tried my hand at making my own, fresh Ramen noodles.  The youtube vidoes made it all look so easy.  But alas! I failed miserably, left with stretchy lumps of gluten rather than fresh, delectable noodles.

And so I was left with making my own broth and accouterments.  I began with making chicken stock from leftover carcasses and aromatic vegetables, freezing little cubes of warmth and nourishment.  Then I was holding a bag of frozen pork neckbones and all I could think of was Ramen broth.  Fish carcasses-Ramen broth.  Beef joints-you get the idea.  

I knew I was at my lowest when I was surveying my garden.  My beautiful, flourishing garden-and all I could think about was chopping it all up and putting it in my Ramen.  Swiss chard leaves and julianned stalks, broccoli greens, radishes, kale, pea pods, sprouted beans ...no vegetable was safe!  The herbs weren't safe either. I chopped up green onions, leeks, garlic, borage, anything I could get my hands on.  

I thought I was getting better until I was sick.  I spent days in bed with a fever.  Lost 12 pounds in the course of a week.  And then a Vietnamese friend of mine brought me a carton of pho.  Pho so hot it made me sweat out the sickness that had weakened me. 

And so, another addiction has taken the place of Ramen.  I still lapse occasionally, I still have the bottles of soy, miso, and mirin in the refrigerator, but my life doesn't revolve around Ramen any more.  

It's been at least a week since I had Ramen.  Sadly, my children have taken the same path of addiction that I have.  I butter their noodles and add only a 1/2 pack of seasoning, hoping protect them from the ravages of 2 RDA's of sodium.  I guess the cycle of addiction begins again.

I think Ash had a great kimchi recipe he shared like 4 or 5 years ago, or it might have been groin, I get confused in my old age