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Tuesday, February 22, 2022
The Observer & Baker City Herald
Pandemic
linked
to rise in
foot pain
By SARAH GANTZ
The Philadelphia Inquirer
Kelly Yamanouchi/Atlanta Journal-Constitution-TNS
Almost-instant spicy sesame miso ramen with smoked trout and egg.
Quest for the perfect ramen
By KELLY YAMANOUCHI
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I have spent a lifetime
experimenting with vari-
ations on basic instant
ramen, with the vague
goal of someday reaching
noodle soup perfection.
As with a lot of things,
there were instances when
I believed I had reached
the pinnacle of homemade
ramen, only to see a new
idea bubble up, hinting that
there could be more great-
ness to be achieved, and
tempting me to tweak the
recipe again.
My life of instant
ramen, and the endless
variations on it, started
decades before ramen was
cool, pre-dating this period
of young professionals cel-
ebrating their birthdays
over $12 bowls at trendy
ramen restaurants.
I’m Asian American,
and ramen was a staple of
my childhood — a simple
and comforting meal, easy
to turn to anytime.
My parents made a more
involved saimin, a noodle
soup popular in Hawaii,
where they grew up. But,
we occasionally would turn
to ramen, with accouter-
ments similar to saimin:
julienned omelet, char
siu, green onions from my
mother’s garden.
As soon as my older
brother Roy was tall
enough to boil water on the
stove, he started making
his own ramen, and would
make a double batch for
both of us.
That’s the point in my
childhood when I learned
preferences for ramen can
vary. My brother would
take his share of noodles
and broth from the pot,
before it even reached the
golden 3-minute mark, and
leave the rest on the stove
for me — telling me that
it was because I liked my
ramen “overcooked.”
I told my brother I was
writing an article on weird
variations on ramen and
asked if he still likes his
“crunchy.” He responded:
“Yes. And it’s not weird.”
Besides, he said, when
he was in Boy Scouts, they
would eat ramen raw, “but
that’s because we were
hiking and too lazy to
cook.”
And, my brother
revealed his current unau-
thorized method: He boils
water, turns off the heat
and then drops the noo-
dles in.
“Sacrilege!” I
responded.
“I’d call it al dente,” he
claimed.
At my friend Shan-
na’s house, after middle
school got out, I learned
another twist: She drained
cooked ramen noodles and
added butter and the sea-
soning packet — a sort
of Asian-inflected butter
noodles.
College was a chance
to expand my ramen hori-
zons. There, I learned
my friend Emily added a
raw egg to the pot when
cooking ramen — quicker
than making a separate
omelet for garnish, as my
parents do. I’ve been drop-
ping in an egg ever since.
Over time, I’ve adopted
an unusual method of
eating ramen, probably
because I grew tired of jug-
gling two utensils. Dis-
pensing with chopsticks,
I use only an Asian soup
spoon to cut through the
noodles, and scoop the per-
fect ratio of broth to noo-
dles for every bite.
I view ramen as com-
fort food, the way others
look at mac-and-cheese.
But, when I asked my hus-
band, Ron — who did not
grow up eating ramen —
what his corollary is, he
said: “Nothing. I don’t like
anything as much as you
like ramen. You eat it for
breakfast!”
I informed him that
plenty of people eat ramen
for breakfast, which he
questioned. So, of course,
I searched Twitter to back
me up. I found 13 tweets
with the term “ramen
for breakfast” in the pre-
vious 24 hours, and thou-
sands more in the broader
Twitterverse.
I knew this to be true,
because my best ramen
buddy — my friend Ashley
— also loves ramen for
breakfast. I know this
because, when playing the
card game Ramen Fury,
the player who goes first is
whoever ate ramen most
recently. Ashley’s answer:
This morning.
Ashley and I regularly
gift each other instant
ramen in different flavors
— new ones discovered
at the Asian supermarket,
favorite flavors to share,
unusual varieties found
during travels. I think she
might love ramen as much
as I do.
But, the real point of
this story: I believe I may
have found what’s close
to the perfect ramen — at
least, until I find something
better.
The genesis was an elec-
tric smoker I found at an
estate sale. Upon hearing
of my smoker purchase, my
dad told my mom to find
their “basic smoked fish”
recipe to send to me. It
yielded some tasty results.
Then, while visiting
my parents, I thumbed
through some old family
recipe binders and found
a “Yamanouchi smoked
fish recipe” — something
I apparently could not be
trusted with, in my father’s
eyes. As I skimmed the
more extensive list of
ingredients, I felt sim-
mering rage and jealousy
— wondering if my brother
had gotten the family
smoked fish recipe after
he bought his smoker, and
how long he had to wait
for it. But, I said nothing.
Instead, I surreptitiously
shot a photo of the recipe
with my phone, and flew
home.
Back at home, I fired up
the electric smoker for four
beautiful fillets of smoked
trout, made with the smug-
gled Yamanouchi recipe.
The next morning, as
a pot of water boiled on
the stove for my breakfast
ramen, I started to sense a
synergistic opportunity.
I had been experi-
menting with ways to
enhance ramen made with
Lotus Foods’ brown rice
noodles, which don’t come
with a soup base and,
thus, offer a blank slate for
innovation.
While some of my
dependable flourishes
include homemade stock
and kimchi, this time I
tried miso paste and hot
sesame oil with egg and ...
flaked smoked trout.
See, Ramen/Page B3
PHILADELPHIA —
Stuck at home and out of
work because of the pan-
demic, Timothy Hudson
decided to tackle a new
project: lose weight and get
in shape.
Between September
2020 and May 2021, the
32-year-old dropped 100
pounds by changing his
eating habits, working out
more, playing basketball
with friends, and running
up to five miles a day.
Hudson, who lives in
Chester, Pennsylvania, said
he’d never felt better —
except for his feet.
“It was like a burning,
pulling feeling,” Hudson
said. “Any type of stren-
uous activity, I’d be out for
at least three days.”
Foot pain has been on
the rise during the pan-
demic, as people working
from home kicked off their
supportive shoes in favor
of flimsy slippers and
flip-flops, while others,
including Hudson, used
the time to become more
active, which put new strain
on their feet.
“In March 2020 I
said … ‘Oh, my good-
ness, everyone is going
to have plantar fasciitis
and Achilles tendinitis,”
recalled Laura Virtue-De-
layo, the president of the
Pennsylvania Podiatric
Medical Association.
Her prediction panned
out: Podiatrists, orthopedic
surgeons and physical ther-
apists say they’re seeing
more cases of plantar fasci-
itis and Achilles tendinitis
— two common foot-pain
conditions — than ever
before.
Virtue-Delayo, a Scran-
ton-based podiatrist, said
her caseload of foot pain
patients peaked over the
summer, when she was
treating about 35% more
people for foot pain than
usual. The number of new
patients with foot pain has
gone down but remains
above prepandemic levels,
she said.
What causes plantar
fasciitis?
Plantar fasciitis is
inflammation of the thick
band of tissue that connects
the heel bone to the toes,
which causes a stabbing
heel pain.
See, Foot/Page B3
Dislike the word ‘moist’? Cookbook author says to embrace it
By GRETCHEN McKAY
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Gretchen McKay/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette-TNS
This hearty pasta salad is full of Moroccan flavors, and is a perfect side for scallops or Caribbean
jerk chicken.
Want to make people
uncomfortable? Just say
something is “moist.”
Studies show that many
people don’t like the word,
in large part because of its
association with sweat and
other types of moisture
we’d rather not talk about.
Yet when it comes to
cooking, moist is a good
thing, both when it comes
to texture (who likes dry
cake?) and basic tech-
niques such as simmering,
braising, steaming or
stewing.
Moisture — the presence
of a liquid — is what makes
breads spongy, vegetables
tender, watermelon juicy
and pastries so wonderfully
silky. Moist-heat cooking
methods like poaching and
frying, meanwhile, keep
foods from drying out,
resulting in tender, flavorful
meat and seafood dishes.
New Castle, Pennsyl-
vania, native and cookbook
author Kathy Hunt can’t
understand why so many
people bristle at “moist.”
But she sees it, especially
among younger adults and
kids who either giggle or
gag (and sometimes both) at
its mere mention.
Even her publisher found
the word too titillating a
name for her latest cook-
book, which aims to explain
and demonstrate, with more
than 70 recipes, why moist
is so important in the culi-
nary world. While they
loved the idea of a tech-
nique book, the marketing
department nixed using the
word in the title.
They found a happy
compromise with “Lus-
cious, Tender, Juicy: Rec-
ipes for Perfect Texture in
Dinner, Desserts and More”
(Countryman Press, $30),
all of which are important
elements of delectable (and
moist) foods. The book pub-
lished in December.
Hunt’s authority on
the subject is years in the
making. Even though she
grew up with a mother
who viewed cooking as
drudgery, she couldn’t help
but embrace it once she
arrived at Grove City Col-
lege to study history and
secondary education. It was
one way to guarantee she
could find something good
to eat in a tiny college town.
“It was an act of rebel-
lion and survival,” she says
with a laugh, noting that
“The Joy of Cooking” was
her bible.
She only grew more pas-
sionate after moving to New
York City in 2000 to pursue
a graduate degree in jour-
nalism at Columbia Univer-
sity. The many restaurants
she explored there inspired
her to enroll at the Culi-
nary Institute of America in
Hyde Park, N.Y.
See, Moist/Page B3