I carry no phone An aspiring Luddite In a wired world. Mastodon Verification Link	Jeff Berry is an early adopter of the Internet and the Web, a late adopter of Twitter, and declines to adopt Facebook. With the death of Google+, he migrated to the Fediverse. He admins a medievalist Mastodon instance. He hates cell-phones.

I suspect that many of us of the cookish persuasion have similar habits in grocery stores. Come on now, be honest, how many of you have found some unfamiliar ingredient tucked away on a shelf somewhere and bought it thinking, "I have no idea what this is or what to do without, but it looks interesting and I'll figure it out later." Or maybe that's just me. In any case, I was meandering through the local Asian market looking for noodles, when I found a package of fern root noodles. They were black, thin, and interesting looking, so naturally I bought them.

Now, noodles are noodles, at least to a first approximation, so I wasn't too worried about finding something to do with them. In fact, they went into a quick noodle soup within a day or two, and were perfectly adequate.

It was a conversation with our pseudodaughter Bruce (long story) that sent me haring off after cold noodle recipes. Admittedly, I didn't require much prompting. She said something like, "What about cold noodles?" to which I replied, "That's a good idea!" Then I began to rummage through my cupboard ...

• 1/4 or 1/3 of a green cabbage
• a cup or two of butterbeans
• a carrot
• a couple of scallions
• a good handful of fern root noodles
• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 1/4 cup malt vinegar
• 1 Tbs miso paste
• 1 Tbs chili oil

If you're using dried butterbeans, soak and cook them. If using canned, drain them. Grate the carrot. Cut the scallions into small pieces.

Cook the noodles, and, honestly, you don't have to use the fern noodles, but it makes the colors work out nicely. Drain them and let them cool.

Make the dressing by mixing the soy sauce, malt vinegar, miso paste, and chili oil. Combine with the rest of the ingredients and serve room temperature or chilled.

This recipe, of course, admits of many variations. Use different beans or noodles. Make a dressing with tahini, as I did on a subsequent occasion. The things to aim for, I think, are a nice mix of colors and textures.