We went for breakfast ramen this morning. You heard that right. I had steak and eggs ramen. It was a lovely and very soul nourishing experience. It was a cold and slushy day as we made our way down to lower Manhattan and found our way into the oddly placed Ramen By Ra. The space, chef, and food were perfectly aligned to sit you down for a warm and nourishing experience that would share with you a very familiar story which had been reimagined to connect things you already knew, but in a new, flavorful, and warming way.
The base of the ramen was a warm chicken broth with thin light noodles and several thin slices of tender beef barely cooked in a halo of oil and greens. It yanked you into the moment. The noodles were delicious high quality reflection of the ramen noodles of my past, but what really twisted the narrative for me was the fried egg gently placed on top that I mixed in with the beef, oils, and greens. The egg became a vortex of emotion for me which I stirred into the broth of my steak and eggs ramen.
I have never ever encountered steak and eggs in ramen in over forty years, but in my youth I would dump whatever was available to me in the fridge into my Maruchan noodles, and one thing I’d often put on it was a fried egg. This connection made the Ramen by Ra experience was strangely familiar, while also still being a completely new experience. It was steak and eggs. It was the cheap ramen from my youth. It was a new and transformative experience culinary experience in New York City. It was amazing and delicious, but also made me a little woozey afterwards.
This breakfast ramen experience was everything for about 45 minutes. It pulled me into this single moment, focused me, nourished me, and left me feeling whole. However, as I made way back home through the slush and subway with Audrey I started to feel sleepier and sleepier until when I got home I knew I was going to have to take a long nap on the couch. All the energy inside me seemed to be captured by the experience and had been completely pulled away by the warm feeling in my belly and soul.
To help better understand my state of mind, you need to know that earlier this morning I had woke up at 4:30 AM with a feeling I haven’t had since the 1980s. I had the urge to grab the gun and head for the hills cause the fascist government was bearing down on our home. I can’t remember the dream that triggered me to wake up, but I can tell that it was linked to going to bed worrying about what is happening in Washington D.C. right now. I don’t entertain the version of Kin that fears the government and perpetually feels a need to grab the guns and head for the hills anymore. However my nervous system was lit up leaving historical emotions pulsing through my body as I made my way to breakfast this morning—-no matter how optimistic I was for my immediate future involving a warm bowl of noodles, my pump was primed.
Traveling from the austerity and fear of my youth where an acceptable breakfast on any given day was two packs of Maruchan noodles plus whatever meat was in the freezer, oftentimes venison, beef, and a fried egg over the top to a five seater culinary experience in lower Manhattan served by an amazing black woman with complete control over her kitchen, ingredients, and the dish she put in front of me was a transformative yet dizzying experience (in this moment). It was like time travel or dreaming an waking up in an amazing yet dystopian future where we have a fascist government, but there are amazingly diverse culinary artists who serve up magic in the cracks of buildings in lower Manhattan.
What is it with Ramen and me? Not sure I can make sense of it all right now. I am drained. It feels good. It feels like I worked through some shit. But feeling the austerity of my 1980s youth in my veins while recovering from such a soul nourishing experience while the world is falling apart leaves me exhausted. Even after a nap.
Post Script
Throughout this morning I have also been continuing to process my anger over artificial intelligence and its fascist alliances in this moment, and I can’t help celebrate all the humanity involved with my breakfast ramen this morning. It was an experience that had NOTHING to do with technology and are recipes and experiences that can never be reduced to transactions via a system. I can see the same forces at play in AI as with the austerity of ramen eating experiences across the United States and my life. We all deserve Ramen By Ra. We all get Maruchan. Fuck you AI and capitalism. There is no way AI can recrete what she delivered today, and the words I produce here can never be recreated by AI–it didn’t eat shitty ramen in a shitty trailer in a shitty corner of this country. Maybe it should.
Post Script Script
Addressing another way the Internet grinds us all down. To all the people who would respond to this story via social media and tell me that nobody wants to hear what you had for breakfast. I feel bad for you and the sausage grinder of social media. I wrote this story for me within my domain and syndicating it out via my federated channels (email, bsky, mastodon) within that domain. I am the one nourished by the breakfast this morning, and by writing this story, and taking the nap right before I finished this story. Please don’t do the work of the sausage grinder and shame people who write stories about their breakfast. It is pretty sad.
