“You learn to cook so that
you don’t have to be a slave
to recipes” – Julia Child
I am a combination of a man of a certain age, self-employed for 20 some years, and kind of retired. Together over the years it has allowed me to do a lot more cooking. Moving from the Twin Cities some 20 years ago, and living in the country without a new fun and interesting ethnic restaurant around every corner, also allowed/made me get more into cooking at home. Like most things, the more you do it the better you get, right?
I have a small story about a good friend of mine, Mike. About two years ago or so, Mike was entering full-time retirement from a long-term corporate career. He has always been a fan of my cooking. I think at the time he would admit that other than being a Master of Walleye shore lunch, and an awesome smoked meat man, Mike did not do a lot of “cooking” or preparing or making meals. We are partners in crime when it comes to smoking meat; and partners in many other crimes when it comes to drinking fine bourbon.
Anyway, as a sort of “retirement gift” for Mike, I made a massive white ash end-grain cutting board, figuring he could always use it. Mike used to work the classic over-60-hour-a-week desk job. He has an amazing heroic wife that did the vast, vast majority of meal planning, shopping, and cooking. I’m going to keep her name out of this so I only have one fight to pick.
When I was going to deliver Mike’s gift, I knew Nancy was not at home and so I offered to take care of dinner for him too. To be made at his house. I said it was going to be simple and quick to share between beers. Mostly out of respect and convenience and not making him get anything for dinner, I said I would bring everything. I seriously did not want to make it a big deal, was not out to impress him, and believe it or not the main ingredient for dinner was a couple of instant ramen cups!
We had a couple of beers and he graciously “ooohed and ahhhed” over his new cutting board despite being slightly unsure how he would use it. It got to be time to make something to eat, and I admit I do like an audience to cook for, especially for good friends. Im not sure this even qualified as “cooking” but I love this as a quick savory option when you don’t have a real plan. I had a partial grocery bag of stuff I grabbed from my fridge, and I always travel with a gaggle of my favorite spices, but when I first removed two foam cups of $.99 cent instant ramen, Mike made some remark one would only make to a best friend cooking you dinner when you pull out instant ramen.
I asked for 3 quart saucepan, put 2.5 cups of water in the pan and turned up the heat, opened the ramen cups which had the flavor packets and dumped the flavor packets in the water. Then proceeded to empty my grab bag. I sliced some green onion, spooned a little chopped garlic from a jar, pulled out a small handful of raisins, chopped a little cilantro, crushed about 15 peanuts, minced a half of carrot, thin sliced a jalepeno, and tossed it all in the now simmering pot!
I added the ramen noodles, my own course ground black pepper, Italian seasoning, a little cumin, smoked paprika and a generous teaspoon of curry powder. Lastly, one of my favorite umami ingredients, just a teaspoon of Korean Terriyaki BBQ sauce, and one of those larger cans of white chicken breast.
Bam! It all simmered a short while, noodles and veggies softened and all those yummy things melded into basically instant ramen with a little bit of all your favorite things. Or at a minimum, all of those miscellaneous bits and pieces in the fridge that you weren’t sure what to do with! Anything could go in the pot! Be brave, experiment, and do your own thing. Mike was mostly flummoxed with how spicy, yummy, savory the whole bowl was. I will come back to Mike I imagine in other columns, but to this day one of my favorite texts I got from him a few months after that night was… “I have spent more time, in more grocery stores in the last few weeks than I have in the last 20 years of my life! And I have you to thank for it.”
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