Sweet and savory musings (and recipes) from a food obsessed writer. My friend, Mrs. Cleavage, the southern girl extraordinaire living in Brooklyn with her adorable little boy, has started a food blog called Eat, Drink, Memory with great recipes and stories and pictures.

I LOVE IT. And this girl can COOK.

Many of my former loves were big rice eaters and my son’s father is Nepali, so wouldn’t, couldn’t imagine a day without rice or Dal bhat. My son, just back from six weeks in Nepal, is eating in the traditional way — by hand.

Nothing could be more natural for us than having a rice dish.  I
prefer yellow rice or saffron rice, and of course, sticky rice bought
freshly made and wrapped in banana leaves in Chinatown.  My son has a
preference for straight-forward, nothing added, white rice.

I am always trying different types of rice, recently bringing home a
bag of Thai sweet rice to make coconut rice pudding — the only English
language recipe on the package.  Necessity truly is the mother of
invention.  Out of basmati and jasmine rice and with a son begging for
rice balls, I decided to cook the sweet rice like regular rice.

Ah!  Sticky rice! Sweet rice makes a delicious bowl of sticky rice.
I’ve always been intimidated by the little sticky rice packets — leave
them to the professionals , I said to myself — but now the
possibilities seem limitless.  Now I’ll be trying Naw Mai Fon as well as Ho Yip Fan. Good to know there are banana leaves in the frozen food section of my favorite Chinese grocer.