When we were dating back in the 1980’s, I visited Hepcat’s crowded studio apartment on East End Avenue. He had a nice kitchen connected to a room where he had a mattress on the floor, a desk covered with an Amiga Computer, manuals, and lots of paper and newspaper.
The place was kind of a mess. But I overlooked that because, well, I was in LOVE.
I remember on that first visit checking his kitchen cabinets. Just to see what my future mate (I had a hunch he would be my future mate) had in his kitchen cabinets. Call it nosy. I call it — important information.
Well, guess what was in there? Dozens of yellow and green packages of INSTANT RAMEN. Yes, Ramen. Seems that Hepcat used to live on Ramen. It’s bachelor food I reckoned.
"Do you buy in bulk?" I asked him.
"Yeah. I get big crates of the stuff," he said.
Truth is, Hepcat supposedly made up a great recipe for cold noodles with sesame sauce which used Ramen. There was also peanut butter in his fridge. And beer, I think.
He should have made me some then and there. That would have sealed the deal. But I was in love already.
All these years later, Hepcat’s the cook around here. And we hardly ever have Ramen though our son has gone through Ramen binges.
So that’s my Ramen apprecation at the time of its inventor’s death. The laugh I had at all that Ramen Hepcat had in his kitchen cabinets when he was a bachelor.
Such a cute story!