A month or so ago, just after I got back to New York from a couple of months in South America, I watched the movie The Ramen Girl with my wife at our apartment. The movie stars Brittany Murphy, who follows here DJ boyfriend to Tokyo, and is then dumped. Heartbroken and confused, knowing nothing about Japanese culture, she walks into a late night Ramen joint and with the bowl of Ramen she experiences a deep comfort and her soul is instantly warmed. The next day she returns to the Ramen shop and pleads with the owner, a Ramen master, to teach her to make Ramen. The grumpy owner refuses but eventually gives in and Murphy becomes something of a daughter to him and he teaches her all he knows.