Wait. Wait wait wait wait whawawawawawaaaaaaiiiitt!! What is this what is happening oh jeez oh wow this was not the expected outcome! Not the expected outcome at all! She was supposed to! But then she! And now she's! Oh yikes oh yikes oh yikesy yikes yikes!

Dulcinea is not used to being dragged around. She is very used to plans going wrong but the way! This girl! Is toouUUching heeeerrrrr! Is very! Eeep! Distracting! And not! Conducive! Toward! OptimAAAL! Thin-thin-thinky things! That's why she doesn't manage to shout apologies even though her crystal is battering her. That's why she's a warm and squirming mess right now with every mincing step she takes. That's why (please trust the narration on this) you do not want to see the inside of her head right now. It would only hurt you. And her. 

And that is why you should be impressed when she does at least manage to scribble out a note, fold it into a paper airplane (specifically a Learjet 35!), and toss it over her shoulder at Shoykyou. There, are you happy you nosy little guilt crystal? There's a request to talk about (gag) comic books in there and everything. 

Then they round the corner. Alone. Together. Oh no. She should, like... say something smart? Or witty? Maybe cute? like, omg?

"Did you know there are technically infinite varieties of ramen?"

Yeah? Ok? That's what we're going w-- a-all right!

"It's true! For example, the place we're going right now serves a creamy, emulsified broth that's... oh, see, so like, they take the bones from animals, right? Pig feet and chicken feet mostly, but you know, some shoulder blades and vertebrae and stuff, it's really cool and good trust me! You take those bones and you simmer them in water for hours and hours and hours, and there's a lot of fat content in the marrow, right? And because you're bringing the water to a boil it creates an unstable emulsification! Cause you know, normally all that fat doesn't mix with the water; they're not chemically or even alchemically compatible, but with the addition of heat they'll mix anyway, only to sort of break apart again when the stock returns to consumable levels of heat. Hence the creaminess!

And anyway yeah that's one part of the soup stock, but you can do it in other ways and even siphon the fat back out for use as a topping later! This place just tosses butter in for the fat component so it's different, but you [i]can[/i] do it and that's the important part. Then of course all ramen adds a lot of dashi to its broth, because the fish flakes cut out some of the astringency of the fat and just overall give the bowl a much richer flavor profile, see?"

At some point in the middle of all this, Dulcinea has managed to spin herself free and is now walking backwards with a little sashay in her step. She resolutely holds the umbrella over Jasper no matter how badly this gets her own outfit ruined, and she doesn't turn her head to look behind her for anything in the world. She even manages to round another corner and cross the street without missing a step. Ask her how she does it some other day! Right now, she's too busy blushing and breathlessly talking about food.

"And then! There's the tare, right? That's where you add in more salt content through soy sauce and a low-alcohol wine called... do they have wine where you're from? Anyway it's called mirin, I think, and it's got a very high sugar content so it's just extremely high energy, very dense, and a super rich flavor profile. You could just pour... well ok no, [i]I[/i] could just pour the stuff down my throat for hours, but that doesn't even get into all of the ingredients! The chashu, the sprouts, the onions, all add varying levels of nutritional content while also conveying new complexities to the flavor profile of the dish...

But more importantly than any of them is the noodles! See, here's the thing, right? The noodles used in ramen are already separated by thickness between six categories, and depending on which one you use you get different resting temperatures and mouthfeels and absorptive properties, differing levels of protein depending on the flour you use of course. See, because how much flour you add to the noodle mixture changes the level of work that needs to be put into the dough, which produces higher gluten contents and continues to affect the overall profile of the soup. The higher the flour content the less water goes in the noodles themselves, so they can become so absorbent, in fact, that if you let them they'll drain an entire bowl's worth of broth into themselves! That result can be a little messy, but incidentally if you ever see a dry pack of ramen at a store, this is the technique they use so watch out before you get distracted in front of your bowl.

And oh gosh! I haven't even gotten to the matter of alkilinity! See, the noodles are held together via the strong flour proteins, like I said, but a critical component of a ramen noodle, as opposed to like, a somen or, god forbid, tagliatelle or whatever, is carbonate salt like good ol' reliable K2C03! And this is an alkaline mixture, which means the noodles are basic. Not simple, though! They're obviously extremely complex! I mean they are, themselves, a base! And since as we've already noted the soup itself is so highly acidic in nature there's actually a major chemical war being fought inside of the..."

She can continue like this the whole way, if she's allowed. It's her favorite food for a reason, after all! It's just... you know, a shame about what happened the last time she tried to cook it herself. But that's not the point! The point is, even something as [i]distastefully[/i] pastoral as cuisine can, in fact, become fascinating when you allow yourself to pull it apart and understand all of its chemical complexities, and the sympathetic connections that build up between the energies of the various components and...