January 21st, 2011

Rice Pudding

I have been thinking about gender lately, mainly because I’ve run into a number of books and movies that make some unfortunate generalizations. Then last night’s meeting of the ever-excellent Women’s Writing Salon touched on smallness in the context of domestic and quotidian detail, and are those things either trivialized or thought of as “women’s” in the public consciousness? And if so, do we care?

I left early for my three-bus trip home, but I believe we were arriving at “meh” (anyone who stayed later should correct me if I’m wrong): You have to write about what you care enough to write about, and it’s the skill and sensitivity of the writer that makes the text “big” or “small.”

Anyway, that’s about as far as I can get with the issue, and this blog is pink and I haven’t worn pants in public in 3 years, so if you were going to judge me for being too “feminine,” you probably already have (and stopped reading the blog??) So here’s a really good recipe for rice pudding:

Into a big, deep greased casserole dish, put
4 cups skim milk
3 tablespoons brown rice
1/3 cup brown sugar (or less)
1/2 teaspoon salt
nutmeg if you’re into nutmeg

Stir, then put into a 300 F oven. Stir every 20 minutes for the first hour, then every hour or so until you’ve either reached a total of 3.5 hours, or it looks about the consistency you’d like to eat. Then do so.

This is a great writer’s recipe, because it’s barely any work but it forces you to stay home and write for an entire afternoon, instead of say, getting bored and wandering off to the movies. Of course, there might be some people who leave the house with the oven on if they know they’ll be back before it’s done, but I always worry I’ll get hit by a bus and then not only will I be in the hospital but my building will burn down.

Anyway, you stay home, you stir occasionally, you get lots of work done, and then you are rewarded with the best rice pudding in the world. The only probably is that it boils down to only about 2 cups, so though the recipe says serves 4-6 (I’ve adapted this from Fannie Farmer’s Cookbook), only if most of those 6 don’t really like rice pudding. You get either four small lunch-sized portions, or two generous ones. Not that most people think that a romantic dinner-a-deux should be capped off with rice pudding–but I do. Actually, I’ve never suceeded in sharing my rice pudding with anyone; I always eat it all before anyone worthy shows up!