By Stefanie Gans
Could it be more miserable? It’s hard to wake up in the dark, with no promise of sun or warmth. It’s cold and everyone’s just a little blue.
But then I think of lunch. Big bowls of broth filled with noodles. Noodles of all kinds.
I got to sip and slurp these past few months, finding noodle-based dishes from China, Japan, Nepal, South Korea, Vietnam, Thailand and more while working on January’s noodle-themed issue.. It was quite a task, as noodles find a home in probably every country in the world. And in one little nugget that didn’t make the January magazine, I was surprised to find that I liked the long, chewy, housemade (and expensive) wheat noodles better than the duck at Peking Duck Gourmet (as I think Tim Carman would agree).
While pho dominates this area, ramen has taken New York, and as such, there’s plenty of think pieces about its demise-slash-sustaining power, especially now that Lucky Peach launched a website. Speaking of resources….
I had lots of help eating, researching and compiling noodle dishes in Northern Virginia. Thanks to Scott Drewno, Tim Ma, Sylvie Nguyen-Fawley, Melissa McCart, Ann Hsu Kaufman, Adam and Apinya Ross, Tyler Cowen, Chris Reichert, Jennie Tai and Fuchsia Dunlop (!!!), whom I chatted with over Facebook Messenger to much joy.
I also used plenty of cookbooks, which I recommend to anyone who wants to learn more about noodles: “On the Noodle Road: From Beijing to Rome, with Love and Pasta” by Jen Lin-Liu; “The Taste of Old Hong Kong” by Fred Schneiter; “Noodles Every Day” by Corinne Trang; “The Vietnamese Market Cookbook” by Van Tran and Anh Vu; “Thai Street Food” by David Thompson; “The Slanted Door” by Charles Phan; “Ivan Ramen: Love, Obsession and Recipes” by Ivan Orkin; and “Momofuku” by David Chang and Peter Meehan (also the men behind Lucky Peach).
But if you want to find out where to eat, besides Water & Wall‘s Silk Road Noodle Pop-Up (through March), grab the issue: on newsstands now.
