My Japanese Mother pronounces noodles something along the lines of new-dew-rues -- noodooroos. She says this word with a certain kind of buoyant joyfulness, as if proclaiming kangaroos! There also always seems to be an an implied exclamation point at the end of noodooroos.

Noodooroos!

Because my people? We are all about the noodles.

Lately, though, what with the adult onset diabetes and all, things have undergone a sad change for my mother. My mother will first exclaim, Noodooroos! And then as if remembering her diagnosis, she catches herself, and she sighs loudly and plaintively. It's a pitiful, depressing sound. Kind of like the cartoon beagle sigh that Snoopy makes.

For awhile, my mother would send me packaged noodooroos in a box around X-mas time. And then she'd make sure to tell me not to eat noodooroos because I was going to give myself diabetes.

Yeah. I know.

"You so crazy about noodooroos," my mother tells me.

And it's true, I'm a potential sucker for any sort of Asian-style noodle dish, but the true noodle hound in my family? That would be my Japanese Mother.

Those of you who know me in Meat Space may have noticed that I suffer from a (not entirely unwarranted) carbphobia that borders on the downright pathological. Yes, it's true. I can be a little bit of a Carb Nazi. For the most part, I keep no refined carbs or processed sugar products in my house. No bread, no desserts, no chips, no white rice, no noodooroos. In fact, I think I may have a physiological sensitivity to these types of refined carbs/processed sugars. They tend to make me feel awful, sometimes even violently ill. But if I inadvertently let my guard down and end up reintroducing them into my system, I immediately start jonesing for them big time -- major, monstrous, big-time crack-cocainey jonesing. Seriously. It's a very, very, very fine line for me between staying away from the carbs and feeling good/healthy and mainlining sugar and feeling sick as a dog.

Yesterday, though, a ginormous box of Shirataki noodles -- Japanese "yam" noodles made from the konyakku root and traditionally used for sukiyaki -- arrived from Asian Food Grocer. (Oh, beloved online Asian Food Grocer, where would I be without you?) The thing about Shirataki noodles? Zero carbs. Zero calories! Chock full of healthy soluble fiber.

Last night I served up spicy Thai green curry on a bed of brown shirataki noodles. Yum!

Today I had a ridonkulously delicious lunch of cold Japanese noodle salad: cucumbers and noodles in a dressing of sesame oil, shoyu, and rice wine vinegar, with a sprinkling of furikake on top. Oh . . . the happy slurping of cold noodles in a tangy sauce with crunchy cucumbers!

Noodooroos!

We love shirataki noodooroos! We buy a backseat's worth of noodooroos at the Asian/Hispanic grocery in S.C. We end up scarfing most of them within 48 hours. One of my fave things is to stir fry them with 64 cloves of garlic, green onions, and "broccoslaw" -- coleslaw fixins with broc instead of green cabbage.

I recognise the carbohydrate cravings you're describing, look at this page to see the stories of many people who have found the way to beat it, and cure themselves of all the symptoms and illnesses it causes, diabetes included - http://www.rawfoodinfo.com/pictures/beforeafters_main.html

shirataki? isn't that what chaka called the sleestaks?