Perfect Instant Ramen

4/9/2026

Perfect Instant Ramen

I get suspicious whenever a recipe has the word "perfect" in the title, but I also become very curious. If you have the balls to describe your recipe as perfect, you better be able to back it up. 

This recipe is pretty near perfect, I can report. It does call for a slice or two of "American Cheese", which you can see I added in the picture above, but Keshav did not like it, and left it behind. His reasoning: it was slimy. The last time I made this I added shredded cheddar at the end instead of sliced cheese, and this worked better, so next time I will revert back to that successful strategy. 

The egg in the middle is "poached" by the hot ramen broth, and overall adds to a very nourishing, warm breakfast. Nearly perfect!

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I have to admit that I am not above scrolling on my phone. I find myself amused by the rabbit holes I go down. I know there is a lot of discussion about what a waste of time it is to "scroll" online, but when I do it I usually learn something I didn't know or see a place or performance that inspires me in some way. I limit scrolling time to no more than 30 minutes a day, but during this time I allow my brain to open to creativity and wonder, and the result is that it can feel like a mini mental vacation.

I also consume a lot of news information each day, but it doesn't stress me out like it does some people;  I am calmed by knowing what is going on. I am the type of person who would rather look under the bed right before sleeping rather than lay there wondering if a monster is going to jump up. I want to know!

The other day, while reading The New York Times in my emails, there was a link to an article "What To See in Amsterdam". I clicked on it because I was curious what they highlighted. Keshav and I were there last year during our honeymoon cruise, and though we only had a day to sightsee, we did a lot. 

This article said that the Anne Frank House is the most visited tourist site in the city, with well over a million visitors every year. That makes sense. We did not visit the site when we were in Amsterdam, but we did float by it during a canal tour. We got a glimpse of the outside facade, which just looks like a regular building because that is exactly what it is. 

Anyway, I decided that I wanted to know more about the house and what was inside and where the families hid. I always had the impression that they all crammed together into an attic, but that is not the case. There were two families living in an "annex" spread out over two floors (plus an attic). These annexes were common in those days when building owners added on a living space in the backyard of the business that faced the canal. 

I continued down the rabbit hole to a helpful website on the house that included virtual "tours" of the rooms in the annex. I spent about 30 minutes going room to room, reading about who lived there and how they spent their time, when they went to the bathroom, when they ate, and learning about the interpersonal dynamics between the eight people in hiding. 

One bit I found fascinating was learning how Anne loved to spend time in the attic, looking out of the window to the outside. Thinking of her doing this to pass the time resonated greatly with me. There is something very mindful about "watching the world pass by", whether through a window, from a park bench, or even in a short video found while scrolling. I imagine that for Anne, her imagination was allowed to run wild while looking outside, wondering where the passersby might be going, what they were saying, and if they appreciated the simple freedom of being able to walk outside. 

I think if I were an animal I would be a cat, and would live with someone who had a big picture window in the living room. I would hope they would set up one of those cat towers where I could climb up and perch all day, watching the goings-on outside the window. I am not sure why I find this to be so interesting, but I find it so even if there is "nothing" going on. 

Sometimes when I take a shower in our apartment, I look out the small rectangular window to the carport below. I love to notice who is coming or going, how the wind affects the surrounding trees, and who has lights on in the large apartment complex a block over. While my observations are nowhere near done within the confines Anne Frank had to adhere to, I do feel glad knowing the power of imagination offers freedom to whomever chooses to indulge it.