“You cook with your head. Understand? Your head is full of noise. You must learn to cook from the quieter place deep inside you.”
“But how?”
“Each bowl of ramen that you prepare is a gift to your customer. The food that you serve your customer becomes a part of them. It contains your spirit. That’s why your ramen must be an expression of pure love. A gift…from your heart. Do you understand?”
“I don’t know anything about love. Every time I feel it, it’s gone. It disappears. And all I have left is pain and sadness.”
“Begin by putting your tears into your broth.”
These lines are from The Ramen Girl, a lovely story of determined perseverance leading to self-discovery in the most unlikely of places, a humble Tokyo ramen shop run by an embittered, talented but tyrannical ramen chef. The lesson in living I took from this quirky but oddly soothing movie is that for some things in life perfect technique is not enough: we must come to terms with ourselves and all that is in our lives before we can create our best work.
