My Rice Story

This is going to come as no surprise to those in the culinary know, but all rice is not the same.  I'm ashamed to say I've cooked as long as I have and am just discovering this in my own kitchen.    I only feel the freedom to express this here because I'm pretty sure my friend, Clarissa, doesn't read my blog. She would probably cackle at me and my lack of rice knowledge.  She makes some of the most incredible Filipino rice dishes.

So, here's my back story.  I grew up in South Carolina.  Yes, we eat rice in South Carolina, but in the Piedmont (foothills for you non-Sandlappers) where I lived, potatoes were reigning king of the table--mashed, fried, baked, stewed--several times a week.  Smother them in brown gravy, white gravy, add cheese.  It was potatoes!  OK, maybe it was just my house, but I actually have no memory of ever seeing  my mom cook a pot of actual, real rice until after I had moved away and gotten married.   Although we did occasionally eat a sort of rice imitation.

I will admit it.  I was reared on Minute Rice.  Shocking, I know.  In fact, one of my favorite lunches during the summers--when I was home alone and there was no adult around to say that I shouldn't just eat a bowl of rice for lunch--was a bowl of Minute Rice with copious amounts of butter, salt and pepper.  I think one of the first meals I cooked for Michael included Minute Rice.  He married me anyway.  Bags of rice were foreign to me.  Seriously, I remember with some trepidation the first time I cooked "real" rice.  I don't remember how it turned out, but it didn't scare me off.  I cannot recall the last time I purchased Minute Rice, and I wouldn't be caught dead with it in my grocery cart now.  Yes, you heard me.  Would not be caught dead!

And I did explore the rice world just a bit.  Alright, I bought brown rice and white rice.  But it is only recently that I discovered that all rices are not the same.  I know.  I've seen the shelves at the grocery store.  Their names are so intriguing.  But come on.  How different could they be?  Night and day, people.  Night and day.

And now because of a new cook book The Feed Zone Cookbook, I've been introduced to a new level of loving and cooking rice. It started with my making rice cakes for Michael to eat on his bike rides.  Now, put aside any dried-up, air-puffed rice cake of your past.  These are wonderful sweet and savory sticky rice cakes that are so delicious.   I know for some of my foodie friends it may seem absurd that I just recently bought my first bag of Calrose rice.  Why didn't I know about this before?  This is some seriously good rice.

I hoping to get up enough culinary courage to make homemade risotto. I'm sure you'll hear about it.  But for know, I'm just going to feast for a while in this new rice heaven.

You know the old Indian math folklore of Rani outsmarting the Raja by asking for the payment of one grain of rice, then doubling the grains of rice every day for thirty days?   Well, make mine Calrose, please!