It’s an odd time for a Christmas rice pudding. We’ve just planted our garden and have already seen green emerge where the seeds were. It’s hot and then rainy in that Oregon spring way, the non-committal weather patterns of the year shedding its frost. We’re nowhere near Christmas—but I take one look at Risalamande, and I buy some rice.
I cook without a compass when I’m off the clock. I’ve learned that the rules are suggestions. I play fast and loose with conversions, aiming for ballpark. I haven’t faltered yet—cooking by intuition is the original recipe. For this project, though, I tighten things up considerably. I use instructions, I follow order. Still . . . there’s always wiggle room.
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Before I knew there was fun to be had in food writing, I flipped through Jeremy Jackson’s Good Day for a Picnic at a bookstore. I was maybe 19, a fews year out from real, determined cooking, and still in the thick of my teenage writing voice (unbearable journals, etc.) I thought both cooking and writing were crafts for the more developed, the kind of thing I could work toward, but only that. I didn’t know a cookbook could be casual; a recipe written like a post-it note to yourself. I bought the book and took it home.
It wasn’t until the night before our wedding that my husband and I realized our paternal grandmothers had the same name. We knew they had the same love; the same strong arms for picking up their children, then their children’s children; the same make-it-work attitude of a bygone era; the same honored place as matriarch. But somehow we’d missed this introduction. It made me wonder how long it had been since I’d said her name.
Another special birthday, another go at a cake. I find a recipe, I buy ingredients. I start a podcast and set to work, but I’ve overlooked an important detail: the butter should be soft. My butter is hard as wood, the kind you want for a scone but not a sponge. I’ve got other things to do anyway, so I wait.
