When Cooking...

...It's wise to pay attention to what one is doing.

The saga started when GMP left me completely alone in the house on a Sunday morning. Strategic error, methinks.

After working on some laundry, making a couple beds, dealing with an LL Bean dress shirt of mine that was "hanging out" waiting for it's 100% cotton wrinkles to be "ironed out" sometime, and helping out it's freshly white junior choir robe friend that was in a similar state, I turned my attentions to the family's sadly neglected finances.

Finances? We were talking about cooking, so how did we get into finances? Well, that's what I have been doing because I have not done it since somewhere around January 17 or earlier. While my Mom was visiting, I pretty much let things go and last Sunday I spent almost all day traveling to get her to the next stop on her offspring tour. With Mossflower due home this evening, her exile from her own home is winding to a close.

In 11+ days the finances can get into a horrible mess. Especially when you have made hash of them to buy a new car in the meantime, as was detailed on "My Empty Nest" recently.

I spent 4 hours after Sabbath ended last night and there was still much more to do today including doing our taxes this year - which I am currently procrastinating on by writing instead. My task this morning was to organize our 1st Quarter-to-date medical expenses and seek reimbursement for ~$500 of expenses thus far that are potentially reimbursable through our Flexible Spending Account.

The bright thought came to me while taking a break to fold sheets that I could start some rice and have it left over with vegetables, beans, etc. for the next few days. This is because we finished the goulash last night so I would otherwise be fending for myself. What could be simpler? Right?

Task #1: Find the rice. A check of the Lazy-Susan in the kitchen and the co-op table and corner down cellar yielded nothing that looked like rice but I found:
> about 6 months worth of powdered "Better Than Milk" soy beverage in various flavors,
> dried banana chips to last about 3 - 5 years (I think that's how long they've been down there already, actually, though I could be wrong there),
> the remains of my 15 lb of Turkish dates which I am using regularly and have given a 1 qt. zip-lock type bagful to my Mom who also loves them (do you think that might be inherited? Hope does spring eternal that I bear no personal responsibility for my dried fruit picadillos. Moving on...)
> 1 1/2 boxes of whole wheat macaroni,
> a nearly full box of whole wheat spaghetti,
> a container of dried apple slices that was excavated from King Tut's tomb in 1950 (it helps marrying a wealthy wife to be able to afford such delicacies!)
> a new 50 lb bag of hard white winter wheat berries that makes the most scrumptious bread (and in someways is why one must be patient with some of the other items of archeological vintage that one must concede may well have their original provenance at the co-op)
> and one unopened box which proclaims that it contains Wild Rice - not quite what I had in mind, actually.

No BROWN rice. Back upstairs. Spin the Lazy-Zusan one more time (those who do the same thing repeatedly, expecting to get different results...). Nothing. Time for a more thorough search of the kitchen environs. Pay dirt! In the dining room two containers (1 full, 1 essentially empty) with Basamati rice! One has a cryptic notation on the lid, which after failing to decipher the message, though I comprehend from the math that my beloved has wrestled with the quantities and proportions for cooking this particular item.

Instead I delve deeply into memory from the last time we had rice: [Fade to Memory Vision]

GMP:"You know what I was doing wrong with this rice before?"

ME: (Thinking: "Actually no, and it really doesn't matter: my mouth is full, my stomach is still empty and you want to talk about the fine points of rice preparation?!") "No, dear, I can't say that I do." (Said around a mouthful of perfectly cooked Basamati rice with stir fry vegetables topping it and soy sauce and a bit of salsa...while thinking: "That did it. Now you ARE going to hear what was wrong with it before - seemed fine to me last time" - which is code for, 'It was ready when I was hungry and it filled the void; what more does rice need than that?! At least it wasn't Tofu Loaf.')

GMP: I cooked it with 2 cups of water this time. Before I was using 2 1/2 like it said for brown rice. (ME: THINKING, of course, 'This IS brown rice - Basamati brown rice!') I found out by looking up cooking instructions for Basamati rice on the internet!

ME: "Great job! It sure is good!" (THINKING: "That should give her permission to bask in the praise and eat some of HER rice!").

[Fade to Present]

Task #2: Cook the rice. So I grap the pressure cooker (the old one that I'm familiar with) and two 4 cup measuring cups: 8 cups of water, heat to boiling. Measure out 4 cups of Basamati rice into the 2nd (dry) measuring cup and wait for water to come to a boil.

Back to financial document work: sorting, copying, downloading a 2006 reimbursement form, save the PDF file, print out 4 copies (1 for now, 3 for later), start filing in the blanks, etc.

[Noise from next room intrudes into thoughts - our erstwhile cook gets up to check]

There is water on the burner, the pot may be starting to have a few bubbles on the bottom. Not ready for rice. Back to work.

[Sometime later another sound intrudes into our cook's thoughts - off to check again]

The pot has a geyser of steam that would make Old Faitful proud. Time to stop that nonsense! Get that cover off that pot NOW! W H O O S H!!!

By later measurements it was determined that ~3 cups of steaming hot water erupted out of the pressure cooker when the lid was removed under sufficient pressure to liquify russets!

The cook's backward leap, lid in hand was performed with sufficient alacrity that not a drop of scalding water touched him. Anywhere. Plan B: turn the burner off. Done!

Task #3: Clean up the mess. There ensued a 10 minute clean up of the 3 cups of water which distributed itself in a radius of about 2 feet and ran another 1 - 2 feet before being corralled with sponge, cloth and mop.

More water. Re-heat the pot, lid on. Add the rice, turn down the heat and set the timer (surprised, are you that our wayward cook remembered that little detail?!).

What, after all, could be simpler than cooking some rice? Piece of cake!