Growing up, I didn’t eat much rice. If I did, it was fluffed
into pilaf or doused with cream of chicken soup. (Is it shameful to admit that
was one of my favorite meals?) White rice was completely off my radar until my
older sister went away to overnight camp. When I was preparing to go for my
first time, she told a story about how they served white rice one night, and
since they strongly encourage children to try everything, even if it’s new to
them, she had some. I was terrified by the white rice story. Would they make me
eat it too? Would I gag, or worse, vomit? I even had a nightmare the night
before I went away (ok, it was probably really about more than just rice, but
that’s how it came out). My mom reassured me that I didn’t have to eat it if I
didn’t want to. I stuck with bread and potatoes to fill my white-food quota
that week.
I didn’t really begin
to like white rice until I realized it was never meant to be served solo (was
it?) or with variations on the chicken and creamed soup theme. Two of my
housemates come from cultures that serve it under rich and spicy curries, in pockets steamed with meats, and with tasty stir fries, so it’s a staple in our
household. Their daughter, who is almost 18 months old, repeats the word desperately
before each dinner, like it is what she’s been dreaming about since before she
was born. And maybe she was. She nods, points and tries to grab when she sees
it. Once it’s cooled and on her tray, she takes it by fistfuls and shoves it
into her mouth. What doesn’t make it in covers her face, hands and arms, and I wonder
if she isn’t more satisfied by the idea of being completely covered in it (if
only her skin could absorb it!). I don’t get quite as excited about it as that
little girl, but it has its place.
Ironically enough, one of my most enduring and poignant
arguments with roommates to date was over a rice cooker. I found it soon after I moved
to LA in a thrift store for $9. It was in decent shape, and it was large enough
to hold rice that would feed a crowd. The lid was on a hinge and clicked into a
locked position, so that very little steam could escape while it cooked. One
roommate and I would keep warmed rice in it for days. (I questioned the sanitation
of this habit at first, but then googled it: you can keep it in there for up to
72 hours, my friends.) A few years (and different roommates) later, after a
trip away, I pulled the rice cooker from the cabinet to make some rice and
found that it wasn’t working. When I mentioned it to my roommates, they said it
had broken while I was away and they didn’t know what to do, so they prayed for
it and put it away. One even admitted that she didn’t care about my rice
cooker. At that time I was horrified — my precious, lid-hinging-and-locking rice cooker! How could anyone not care about it (or at lease care that I cared)?
By chance, a woman at our church offered us hers for free, since she never used
it. The thing had a removable glass lid that nervously jumped when the steam
got going, and the first time we made rice it burned (how do you burn rice in a
rice cooker?). It just wasn’t the same.
We worked through it, but it took some time (again, the
situation revealed much more than disappointment about or disinterest in a rice
cooker). We still all know what we mean when we say, “remember the rice cooker?”
I’m not sure why I’m telling you all this except that I had
some rice with pumpkin curry for lunch today and as I shoveled every last grain
into my mouth, I thought, I love rice.
No comments:
Post a Comment