The Great Noodle Challenge of 2018
I was at a brewery having goodbye drinks for a friend, who we'll call Jackie, when another attendee, Chelsea, reminded me of The Great Noodle Challenge of 2018. Allow me to introduce the relevant characters.
The cast:
Lucien (Noodle Challenge Competitor, Protagonist and Narrator)
Chelsea (Noodle Challenge Competitor, Adversary and Cheater)
Jackie (Goodbye drinks host, Food criminal & not her real name)
Ben (Noodle Challenge failure but still a nice guy)
Chorus of coworkers (generally indifferent to or unaware of the Great Noodle Challenge taking place in their midsts)
It all started around the office lunch table. Jackie (not her real name), Chelsea, Ben and I were eating our meal and making fun of each other for eating the same things we always did. I had pasta of some variety or another (anyone surprised?), Ben probably also had pasta, and Jackie was eating her classic salad with chicken. I honestly can’t remember what Chelsea was eating at this particular lunch but for thematic purposes let’s say it was something noodle-y.
Jackie’s salad was the same salad she always made at our beloved Gus’s market salad bar. It had romaine lettuce, radishes and raw mushrooms from the cold bar, mixed cooked veggies and roast chicken (drumsticks preferred) from the hot bar. In fact, she got it with such regularity that nearly anyone in the office could compose the same Jackie salad if she was stuck in a meeting and unable to make it to the market. Ben, Chelsea and I asked how many days in a row she’s had the “Jackie salad”.
At this point you may be wondering why I’ve chosen to use everyone’s real name except for Jackie. Well, I’ve done it to protect her identity because of the food crime I’m about to reveal. Jackie’s chief food sin, a malfeasance so egregious I’ve changed her name here, a transgression that still gives me shivers to recall–in fact I am shaking as I type this–she never dresses her salad. She claims it doesn’t need it. To that I said and still say, “Bah humbug!” I can feel my temperature rising so before I completely lose my mind let me try to steer us back towards noodles, sweet calming, beautiful noodles.
Jackie pointed out that I was eating the same leftover pasta I had the day before. We both agreed that neither of us really got sick of eating our respective favorite lunches. I guess I got carried away and claimed I could probably eat pasta for every meal and not get sick of it. That’s when the Great Noodle Challenge of 2018 was born. Chelsea was intrigued and together we laid out the ground rules.
Eat noodles
No repeats
No crying
We decided that starting the following week we’d try to eat noodles for as many meals as possible, record our noodle consumption in a spreadsheet diary, and tally the totals to see who was a more hard core noodle lover.
On Monday, I got off to an early lead, having chicken noodle soup for breakfast. Neither Chelsea nor Ben had noodles for breakfast but we all did for lunch. Ben had brought in bucatini with tomato sauce and Chelsea and I each got the orange chicken noodle bowl from Gus’s market. I knew right away it was a mistake. The orange chicken was sickly sweet and the noodles were sticky and flaccid. I felt gross afterward. This would be a pattern with the noodles purchased at Gus’s throughout the week, but I kept going back to try and win the honor of biggest noodle lover.
Gus’s orange chicken noodle bowl–that’s gonna be a no from me dawg.
For dinner I had a vermicelli bowl and Chelsea made angel hair pasta. Ben didn’t have noodles for dinner. In fact, that bucatini at lunch was the only noodles he recorded the whole competition. Weak! Day 1 was in the books and I was up, 3 to 2 to 1.
Tuesday and Wednesday were rough for me. I only logged one noodle meal each day while Chelsea was picking up steam. On Tuesday, she (*cough* allegedly *cough*) had carbonara for breakfast, a rice noodle bowl for lunch, and fusilli and shrimp in a tarragon cream sauce for dinner. On Thursday she had mac n cheese for lunch and tonkatsu ramen for dinner. Chelsea had more than made up for her slow start and now led 7 to 5.
I was determined not to go down without a fight so on Thursday I vowed to have another three noodle-meal day. I had mac and cheese for breakfast (judgement-free zone people!), spicy lemongrass noodle soup for lunch, and made spaghetti when I got home. To my dismay Chelsea also logged three noodle-meals and maintained her lead, 10 to 8. However, on closer inspection I realized one of her meals was a fraud! Her lunch and dinner were legit, but for breakfast Chelsea had logged “CANDY NOODLES” in all caps, as if daring me to challenge her. And challenge her I did! All I got in response were taunts and a reference to our rules.
Without any means of relief or a higher governing body to appeal to, I decided to carry on under protest. Whether I had simply lost steam or the competition as a whole felt tarnished by my adversaries nefarious tactics, on Friday I only managed to log one noodle meal. Chelsea matched me and ended up 2 meals ahead. Even after docking her a meal for the ridiculous candy noodle claim, I had still managed fewer meals, with 9 on the week to Chelsea’s 10.
Looking back on it, the Great Noodle Challenge of 2018 was more difficult than I thought, and, winning or losing aside, a bit less fun than I imagined. I have to give it to my opponent, Chelsea, who averaged 2 noodle-meals a day. I simply couldn’t keep pace. But our rule on repeats meant that I wasn’t cooking meals for myself that week. Only a couple of my noodle-meals were home-cooked because leftovers would either go uneaten–never normally a problem with leftover pasta in my house–or end up being meals I couldn’t count towards my total. I tend to make a big batch of pasta and happily eat it for the next several meals.
I’m not trying to make excuses here for my loss, except it’s clear the competition was rigged and Chelsea cheated. Nevertheless, we’ll call the Great Noodle Challenge of 2018 a success. There’s still time for a noodle challenge in 2019. I’ll consider reasonable rule modifications. Any takers?