A New Year's Soba and 2025 Things To Do

"This will be our year" - the zombies

The last photo I took in 2024

Today we’re here to talk about an easy recipe and great media coming in 2025 so let’s get into it.

Through various personality tests and my own navel gazing introspection I’m pretty sure I can be associated with magical thinking, and while those are words from a title of a really good Joan Didion book I’ve never read, I often don’t find magical thinking to be a complimentary trait. Although I am often reminding myself to wake up! to reality, a profound coincidence or a moment of synchronicity which leads me to something meaningful is - to quote Chris Rock as Uncle Luke from 2 Live Crew in one of my favorite classic SNL sketches - “…my bread and butter man.”

Chris Rock / one of my heroes / does not seem into magical thinking

Yes I am drawn to synchronicity I READ THE ARTIST’S WAY DIDN’T I? (Did you? lemme hear it in the comments, how are your morning pages going?) On New Year’s Day, TWO synchronicities made it my way, and the second one became a New Years Day meal.

The first one was a middle schooler at the gym wearing a shirt that said “Ramen is always the answer”. This great sartorial philosophy lead me to making homemade ramen with a riff on the southern New Year’s Day tradition of collard greens and cornbread (sadly there were no black eyed peas to be found in my cupboards). Upon realizing the only noodles in the freezer were soba noodles, I googled soba cooking methods and BAM! I was led to Toshikoshi Soba - a Japanese dish I was not familiar with, but a dish that happens to be New Year’s Eve noodles - out with the old and in with the new, cutting the noodles as a way of cutting away the year behind us. Do you see how we got there!? And this was on New Year’s Day no less! To be fair, I discovered this dish on New Year’s Day - not New Year’s Eve, when it is traditionally eaten - but I tend to be behind on things often (case in point, this New Year post is getting to you on Jan 2 at the earliest). But since I was making a bastardized version of homemade ramen and a bastardized version of collard greens and cornbread, I decided to carry on a similar version Toshikoshi Soba one day late, as a way of welcoming in the new year, leaving the old one behind…following the trail from a youth’s shirt to my New Year’s Day bowl. I offer you a similar non-recipe below, dressing up homemade ramen, to be used any time (I don’t recommend eating actual Toshikoshi Soba any time of year because via my limited research, it is pretty much eaten only on New Year’s Eve). Still I celebrate my meaningful New Year’s Day meal which started as ramen and ended as a symbolic meal passing into a new time. Julia Cameron would be proud.

NEW YEAR RAMEN / ANY OLD WAY TO DRESS UP HOME RAMEN

This is a non-recipe, a la Sam Sifton’s great No Recipe Recipes, with inspiration from the Toshikoshi Soba, and a nod to the first food media video I ever made, David Chang’s Hangover Ramen in the Late Night Test Kitchen, circa a million years ago, posted below. (It looks like a first video made a million years ago but we had to start somewhere.)

New Year’s Day noodles or Any Day noodles

THE NON-RECIPE:

Heat about 2 cups of broth in a saucepan - I used homemade bone broth, but any broth is good or Better Than Bullion mushroom base is great. Using Toshikoshi Soba as an inspiration, add a tablespoon of Mirin or Rice Vinegar and 1-2 tablespoons soy sauce to taste (if you’re using dark soy sauce, use less). Cook your noodles separately then set aside (if using soba only cook 30 seconds). Then I add my toppings to the pot and heat them. Fire roasted frozen corn for New Year’s (represents coins, wealth, and exponentially increasing crypto), finely torn dino/lacinato kale (i.e., collard greens on New Years, represents dollars, green, paper, more bitcoin). I added ground pork cooked in sesame oil with sliced garlic. Heat it all through, place your noodles in bowl, then pour the soup on top carefully. Top with sliced scallions and togarashi for flavor and kick. You can crack an egg into a ladle in the pot and poach it (see video for instruction). Homemade dressed up ramen is a great lazy day meal especially for cold months or the day after New Year’s Eve. And next NYE let’s try eating some Toshikoshi Soba. Now onto non food things…

2025 IS HERE AND HERE IS WHAT I AM DOING FOR IT

It is a new year that finds us all in a new place whether we feel it or not. Last year brought on new experiences work wise, more time for future projects, and wide eyes for more synchronicity shiny objects on the path ahead. Since the original premise of this newsletter was food and photography (and fun) we’ll continue in that vein for 2025 with the following resolutions/goals/projects/plans. Some people say resolutions don’t work - but everyone loves goals and planning. So take this however floats your boat.

1. I’m making a movie this year! And you can hear all about the process.

   

   Yes it is true. I’m producing a feature film entitled Dream Baby Dream with my co-producer, writer/director Roland Ellis. After almost a year of planning we wrapped a proof of concept shoot in December, shooting 2 VERY COLD days with a great crew and are working now to put a it together to get more fundraising done. Roland and I talk all about this process on our podcast of the same name (Dream Baby Dream) where we cover everything that goes into making an indie film from scratch in real time. I’m very excited to keep working on it as we move toward our fingers crossed May shoot date.

2. More food media projects come!

   

   I’ve been long at work on a mini-documentary about NYC restaurant closures and the ending of my favorite pizza place Pizza Moto and at long last that will be finished soon, plus other food and entertainment projects as well to find their into the world this year. And all that to say…

3. Food and photos together in a project.

   The original impetus for this newsletter was a way to gather film photos I took with food ideas to turn them into a tangible project. That is still a work in progress here and in that vein, here are my favorite photos of 2024, not directly of food but definitely on the way to food, at a food establishment, or within earshot of some food. Looking forward to more in 2025.

   

   

   

   here's to more in 2025

I hope the New Year brings you great things, more synchronicity (whether you like it or not), and I look forward to bringing more as well. Here’s to it.