“Ars longa, vita brevis” --Hippocrates
The noodle master Peter Song once said
a chef must make 100 bowls of noodles
a day, all by hand, to learn the craft,
to knead the pyramid of flour and water
from a pile of disparate dust till it
comes together in a ball, until it shines,
to stretch and pull it, twist it into a rope,
an umbilicus pulsing with life. Only then
can the chef bring it down hard
onto the butcher block like a cat-of-nine-tails,
whack it till it separates into strands,
long fibers that weren’t there before.
It doesn’t matter how many times
I watch it, I can’t see how it’s done.
He doesn’t estimate how many pounds
of flour, how many hours and days
I will need to stand over this table
before the noodles finally unfold
in my hand, spring to life in the roil
of the steaming water, tender as clouds.
