Over A Weak Fire
Last night was grocery shopping night and we were both running late. Bob had a meeting and I was going to pick him up at school so we could go forage for food together.

But there was a stall on I5 and only one lane could get by, so it took me an hour to get home and by then Bob had walked 9/10ths of the way home so we didn't hit the store until after 7pm.

We forgot the list. We were tired, hungry and just trying to get it over with. The whole thing was not optimal for effective grocery procurement. (The next day we were laughing because other than buying batteries and "lots of juice" we didn't get anything useful.)

As we finished up, tossing a few onions into the cart, we tried to figure out what would be dinner. We didn't want to do any work. We both sidestepped over to that heat table thing with the bright lights and sweating roast chickens in plastic bags. We shrugged at each other as if to says, 'Sure, if YOU want to.' We stuck one in our cart.

When we got home we put leftover microwaved rice on a plate, tore off chicken meat and poured on some juice from the bottom of the bag. We hoovered it, looking at each other as if ashamed to admit it. "This is good."

Tonight I picked the rest of the meat off the chicken of shame and made a peanut sauce and some udon noodles that I've had in the cupboard for ages and finally used. The instructions are as follows (edited very slightly for length.)

1. Loosen Udon and put it in an ample boiling water. Boil for about 20 minutes (do not steam it for the food served in the pot).
2. If steam for about 10 minutes over a weak fire by keeping the lid covered, gentle and nice Udon is ready. You may enjoy the great variety of dishes according to your preference, for example.

We did.