My Relationship With Rice

Yesterday I asked our receptionist what she brought in for lunch. "Rice and beans with chicken" she replied. Flashback to my entire childhood. I would ask with such hope, "What's for dinner?", and the answer would generally be either "rice, beans and chicken", or "chicken, beans and rice" or "beans, rice and chicken". Once in a blue it was "spagehtti with red sauce... and rice." And when my Abuela passed and my mother, who was an only child and never had to learn to cook, started making the rice, things just got worse.

We had to struggle through my mother's learning process and so we ate our way through the many ways a Puerto Rican can screw up rice. It was awful and I vowed to never eat rice again once I lived on my own. And I did just that for a while. But somehow the rice in my genes wouldn't let me go that easily. And when I got the craving I would steam the rice. But I missed that ever delicious, always fought over, pegaito that comes from making Puerto Rican rice in a caldero like my Abuela did. But I made due.

My husband complains I don't make enough rice and beans and that I used it as a lure tactic then once I landed him, stopped making it. My kids complain I don't make it nearly enough, but I keep pledging that I make them sparingly because those foods, eaten too often, can lead to health problems like the diabetes my Abuela had. But now I'm getting older, and am starting to think it may not be the foods but the portions. Let's face it, Abuela didn't eat platefulls, she ate heapfulls. I'm thinking, who doesn't like to walk into a house full of the wonderfull aromas a delicious Puerto Rican meal provides? I'm starting to think "Where can I buy a good caldero?"

Have you moved away from the foods of your youth? Is age bringing you back?

Note: I've actually found a place to buy a good caldero. It's my goto Puerto Rican recipe site, and they offer so much more as well - http://elboricua.com/ I highly recommend the site.