noodles

I have that old song Dr. Demento used to play stuck in my head: "Fish heads, fish heads, roly poly fish heads. Fish heads, fish heads, eat them up, yum." Except, in my head, it sounds like: "Noodles, noodles, soft and slippery noodles. Noodles, noodles, slurp them up, yum."

My brain, you see, is nearly as wet and useless as an overcooked noodle. Our editor (lovely, meticulous man) sent back the first edits of our cookbook manuscript only three days after we sent it in. Wonderful that he's paying attention, but my goodness. We wouldn't have minded some time off. For the past nearly two weeks, I've been back at the computer, tapping away, hunched over, wanting it to be over. Just a few moments ago, I sent it away. I'm free.

For a few days, or weeks, perhaps.

So the post I planned on noodles will have to exist in my imagination. I can tell you that we have been in a noodle mood here lately, from last week's spontaneous "ramen" to the buffalo and wild mushroom noodle soup we ate today at lunch with Anita and Cam of Married with Dinner and our dear friend Tea. So much joy in the sunlight.

And yesterday, our good friends Matthew, Laurie, Judy, and Iris came through the door bearing gifts for Little Bean (Iris's kid-size kitchen, made of sturdy wood!) and a plate full of these Korean noodles. Japchae, a stir fry with beef and "a riot of vegetables," to quote Matthew, are made with dangmyeon noodles, which are made from sweet potato starch. That makes them gluten-free! Matthew was kind enough to make the dish entirely gluten-free, so I could dig in. We wound the slithery noodles around our forks and sighed. What a day.

(And if you want to make Matthew's recipe, and you do if you look at that photograph at the top of this post, see it right here.)

Noodles make me happy. It's hard to take ourselves too seriously with noodles in our mouths.

So tell us — what are your favorite ways to eat noodles? What do you to emphasize their silliness, and their satisfaction?