I am a decent cook. In fact, there are two dozen or so dishes I make that are pretty damn fantastic. Not everything that comes out of my pots and pans, however, is delicious. Or even edible. One such thing is rice. For whatever reason, I cannot cook it to save my life, which is ludicrous considering all you have to do is add water.
How stupid is that?
And yet, anything involving rice always turns out shitty in my kitchen. In spite of knowing this, I occasionally forget and opt to make it anyway. Like last night.
I don’t actually like rice of any variety, but my husband does – black, brown, white, wild, the man is a rice loving fool. He’d eat it every day if I could make it. Anyway, yesterday marked the final day of a long term project he’s been on, and so I decided I would make a spicy black beans and rice dish, because that sort of thing is right up his alley. I told him to call and give me a 45 minute heads up before coming home in order to give me ample time to get dinner ready, which he did.
Let us just say that by the time my man walked in the door, I could tell dinner was a lost cause. So I told him not to get comfortable, because we had to go get him something to eat. Fortunately I had dinner a couple of hours earlier, which meant he was free to go anywhere of his choosing. He decided on Chipotle, which I find disgusting, but whatever, at least they can make rice. My husband quelled my grumblings about high sodium content with a “look, it’ll be quick and easy.”
Fair enough.
When we got there, the line was a mile long. I really don’t understand why a hundred people decided all at once they had to have a burrito bowl. Immediately I asked my husband if he wanted to go somewhere else, but he reasoned that by the time we got back in the car, found another place, and then went inside, we’d waste the same amount of time we would spend standing in line. Right about then two ultra-white hipsters got in line behind us. Their conversation was so asinine and all over the place, I don’t even know where to start.
Female Hipster blah blah blahed about her vacation to Italy for a while.
Male Hipster: I’m totally fucking moving to Europe. I’m soooooooo sick of being an American.
Female Hipster: Do you speak another language?
MH: No.
FH: Do you know anyone there?
MH: No.
FH: I totally support your decision. You know, they don’t have Mexican food in Europe. At first I didn’t care, but after a while I was like, I sooooooo want some Chipotle. But you know, now that I’m here? I would totally give my left arm, maybe not my right arm, but definitely my left arm, for some GNOCCHI. (which she overly-accent-y pronounced with a flourish, NYOOO-KIIIIII).
MH: What’s that?
FM: Oh my God, you don’t know what GNOCCHI is?
MH: No.
Right about then a scream came from the ground. For a split second, I was confused, because my ears were telling me the noise was coming from below, but it seemed weird. And then, something shoved my knee. It was a small child, about three-years-old, shoving people out of the way and yelling at them to move. Her parents were three people ahead of us in line, and when she arrived by their side, neither stopped their conversation to acknowledge her. It would seem they had no clue she had disappeared either.
At this point, the hipsters start talking again.
Female Hipster: Oh my God. Have you talked to so and so lately? She’s, like, totally crazy.
Make Hipster: Yeah, totally crazy.
FH: Are you friends with her on Facebook?
MH: No.
FH: Tumblr?
MH: No.
FH: Instagram?
MH: No.
FH: Twitter?
MH: Yes! She’s totally crazy.
FH: Oh my God. She’s like, totally ghetto on Twitter, right? Ghe-tto.
MH: Yeah, she’s so ghetto.
Let’s ignore the fact that these two and their Italian vacations and trust funds were so unbelievably white that they’ve surely never been anywhere near a ghetto in their tragically hip lives.
At that moment, I heard both hipsters make a startled noise. Approximately two seconds later, something grabbed me knee. It was the little kid again. My husband and I were standing close to each other, and rather than go around, tiny rude child decided to go right between us, only there wasn’t any room. She squeezed through anyway. To my absolute horror, she also wiped her nose on my jeans. Her germ-ridden, tiny, runny nose. On my jeans.
What. The. Fuck.
Eventually my husband ordered and we got the hell out of dodge. As soon as we were out the door, he turned to me and said, “What’s Tumblr?”
The moral of this story is: if you’re too incompetent to cook something as simple as rice, then you deserve to have a kid wipe its nose on your pants.
Do you own a microwave? Because you can cook rice perfectly in a microwave, every time.
(Also, every time I eat at Chipotle, I feel sick. I don’t get the appeal.)
Yeah, Chipotle is not my favorite. I do own a microwave, but I try not to use it.
Get a rice cooker. If you need to suck up it is well worth it.
I used to cook rice in a pot, and it was okay. I am dating a Hong Kong lady, she bought me a rice cooker and I have never looked back. Perfect every time
I’ve thought about purchasing one, but our kitchen is so small I don’t know where I’d put it. Maybe I’ll toss the juicer we never use to make way for the rice cooker.
That was going to be my comment. Rice cookers are great. Although I always have to put extra water in mine or the bottom burns. But still, tons of good rice.
Okay this is weird. I, too, am a decent cook, who can not, for the life of me, cook rice.
And I, too, purchased TWO kinds of rice yesterday, to make in rice recipes, because I forgot myself.
Really? I guess we’re rice twins. I’m glad to know I’m not the only one.
I am typically an excellent cook. Except when it comes to rice. Rice is, like, my kryptonite in the kitchen. I’m terrible with it. Even in the microwave. I ruin rice. All. The. Time.
Yep, I’m right there with you.
My rice cooker always screws up my rice so I gave it away, much easier to make mediocre rice in a normal pot.
Ah-ha, one vote against the rice cooker.
I can’t cook, but I can make pasta and rice. Can’t fry, can’t use the oven (what is this broil you speak of?) and every time I cook meat I burn it becasue if color is no indication of it being done, how are you supposed to know you haven’t just given everyone in your family trichinosis? So yeah. I think you got the better end of the deal there. And I second the rice cooker, perfect rice every time.
Is a broiler the dusty thing on the bottom of the oven? Mine has cobwebs in it.
I have a tendency to pick up wandering, unsupervised children and take them directly to their parents. They usually want to yell at me, but are completely aware that they are in the wrong and in a crowded room, so usually keep their opinions to themselves. I doesn’t always make me popular.