Ramen Forever: An Artist's Guide to Ramen (Yarrow Slaps)

This riotous, visually-saturated celebration of ramen, produced and curated by San Francisco-based urban artist Yarrow Slaps, is a one-of-a-kind work, produced in a limited edition of 1000 copies. With art, recipes, and stories contributed by more than 70 artists, as well as renowned cooks and food writers, it embraces ramen in an astonishing array of forms. Slaps writes: "I wanted to curate a book that was artistic enough to be an art book, but food orientated enough to be a cookbook. Initially, I asked artists to illustrate their favorite instant noodle creations. Additionally, they could share a recipe, a title and the price of the ingredients needed to make the dish. Once this exciting instant noodle art started to come in, I knew that I needed more. I began to think about actual ramen and started to find and interview some of today’s top ramen chefs and enthusiasts. I went down the rabbit hole of ramen. This book is a visual record of my adventures." Among the contributors and featured subjects:

• Chris Ying, former editor-in-chief of Lucky Peach
• Esther Choi of Mokbar
• Abram Plaut, aka @ramen_beast
• Eric Khoo, director of the Singaporean indy film "Ramen Shop"
• Visual artists Katie Benn, Naoki Onadera, Mariah GW, Rosie Yasukochi, Umar Rashid, Tara Booth, Yerrie Choo, and many others

Ramen Forever touches on class and poverty, perfectionism and interchangeability, nostalgia and improvisation. It doesn't define ramen; it illuminates it.