Rice advice

You know when you’re young and you always ask your mom what’s for dinner? Well, us kids would then make faces because it wasn’t exactly what we wanted. We wanted fun food. That was boring poor people food.

My mom is one of fifteen kids and was raised in the old country, where the entire extended family all lived under one roof. I remember my family shipping an air conditioner to that house because my grandfather was in ill health, and it was just too hot for him. It cost us a lot more to ship than the actual unit was worth.

I mention this background because whenever we would gripe about our diet, my mom would come flying out the corral gate and tear into our very souls.

You know, she grew up with nothing but rice, beans and tortillas. And SHE turned out okay. So, what was our problem. Quietly, I was thinking about the story she told on such occasions about the day I was born out in the oil fields. She said she walked for miles in the snow. The one time I pointed out to her that it didn’t snow there, I began to contemplate whether God was listening. And if He was, I truly needed Him at that moment. My mom was loosening her shoe, considering whether to take me out as a moral example to the other kids.

My mom was one of many siblings, and each kid had a chore assigned to them. Her assignment was cleaning the house. So, it was no surprise when my mom moved here, she was a great housekeeper. But, she was a terrible cook. Mostly because her home country residents ate totally different foods from Americans. Very little meat, and things like ants, spiders and crickets.

Us kids had to teach her how to make tacos because she said it was too expensive to go buy them. I had to compromise sometimes, vowing to sample a homeland dish if she would let me teach her some cuisine West Texas style. She had to assure me she would not include unrecognizable species.

One day, she asked me to teach my little sister how to make rice. She was all of fifteen and spoiled. I would push my mom to make her get up and help her. But she told me it was better that way. “It eez much eezeeuur and fasther for me theez way.”

Anyway, back to rice 101. I had to force Sis into the kitchen (she didn’t know the way, because she never really went there). I would talk and she would squirm and make noises.

”I can’t, Big Brother. I’m going to cry.”

”Cry, then,” I said. “How do you expect to catch a husband if you can’t even cook rice? You’re going to have to write Mom and have her mail you some sandwiches so you don’t starve.”

Then, the waterworks began. So, finally, I told her that I would leave her alone. But it better be ready for supper. And it was. We all sat down and she served the rice. Looked okay, smelled fine. We all took a bite. And then, her arch enemy, my little brother, made a face. “Big brother,” he asked, “is rice supposed to be crunchy?”

Then all heck broke loose, she crying and screaming at my brother and my parents yelling at the both of them. I couldn’t get a word in edgewise. And if I could have, I would have told my sister not to sweat it.

Mom made extra crunchy rice her first time when my grandmother taught her. You know us Americans. We do like our crunch.

KyleD is a Nolan County non-crunchy rice fan.