Well, at 6 for a dollar, I can see why this economy might result in more people buying them.

I used to love those as a quick meal and ate them nearly every day after school in high school - until I learned how crazy unhealthy they are. Who woulda thought: noodles? But they're deep fried.

People can pry my packaged food out of my cold, dead hands. Seriously. If we didn't have packaged food at our house, we'd probably starve. (My mother's cooking sucks. Blech.)

Yeah, unhealthy. Don't read the label. But am I a bad person for liking cheap ramen? Though I resort to it a lot less than I used to.

prepackaged ramen really works if you don't think about what's in there, just like most hot dogs -- a bit like flying blind

it's probably the salt content, it triggers some irrational response

(but I still remember the display of like 40 different types of insanely tasty prepackaged ramen bowls I saw in a Indonesian airport lounge. I actually cooked one for myself, ginger flavored or something, and I have to say it was so good)

Apropos of very little besides an excuse to talk about ramen, I'd like to mention my lunch the other day. I was working from home that day and was using the time I didn't spend on the bus/ferry to wander through the garden. Packaged food is something that I abhor. It's tasteless crap amped up with sugar, salt, and MSG to provide a crack cocaine level of stimulation. My life is pretty much centered around food and I've given a lot up to have it that way. My freezer is full of a cow a bought from a farmer (grass-fed and finished) and chickens I processed myself. There's little more sublime that the scent of a carrot just pulled from the ground or a fig at the peak of ripeness from my neighbor's tree.

So I walked to the chicken coop and checked the nest box and was pleased to find that it contained two fresh eggs still warm from the chicken. What a treat, right? So what's the best way to enjoy these eggs?

Poached in oriental-flavor Top ramen with Sriracha hot sauce. God DAMN do I love cheap, packaged ramen.