79 - A Perfect Recipe
This is a reader participation event. Are you ready? Because now…
From the Alex Trebek Stage at Sony Stage Picture Studios…this is Jeopardy! KEN: With its iconic red and white plaid cover this has been a part of many American kitchens since 1930. YOU: What is _____________?
Bzzz. Wrong. The correct response is: What is Better Homes and Gardens NEW Cook Book. However, I appreciated the theme song humming.
Sitting in front of me is a 1976 copy of this binder-style classic. Revised Edition. First Printing. ONE DOLLAR at the thrift store. Obviously, I have to buy it.
Okay. Maybe not obviously…. When I need a recipe, I go online. At some point I therefore donated my plaid beauty, along with most of my other cookbooks. But with a quick flick through its tabs, I know I am buying this one. Because there in Section 9 Desserts is the perfect recipe for –
Bzzz. Bzzz. Wrong. Wrong. Not Cheesecake Supreme. Not Chocolate Charlotte Russe. Although I value the continued reader support!
What floats my boat is not even the Kona Coffee Torte but a far humbler offering: Rice Pudding. I have been looking for this exact recipe for this exact dish. Yup. Rice pudding.
Some of you may be thinking: NJB – you have issues.
So true! I also have at least six rice pudding recipes, including two from later BH&G New Cook Book iterations. But they are all marked by slight differences. None of them are the recipe that I used to make.
The woman at the cash register is also delighted with my purchase. “Still have mine!” she exclaims. “Fifty-five years!” We both smile. I do not remember when I received my original copy but it probably was when DH Al and I got married. For years this cookbook was a bridal gift staple, a bright red and white harbinger of an exciting new chapter.
Some of you may be thinking: Still do not quite get it.
It is a bit crazy. But in these rough, recent months, when I cannot keep down food, when I become weaker, when I stay in Ugly Recliner for too long without moving, finding this tested blend of nutritious and sweet seems somehow emblematic of what I need: A way to turn the corner. A perfect recipe.
DH Al is a fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants cook, willing to wing it. I admire this but oh, lordy, so not me. I want step-by-step instructions, clearly delineated. I want each ingredient ready, no deviating. I want tried and true and well reviewed. Succinctly put, I want to be damn near certain of the outcome…before I begin.
This may work with cooking…not so much cancer. For weeks I try to glean the ungleanable: Weighing the 0 to 20% chance of the chemo being beneficial against the likelihood of it making lousy-feeling me feel even lousier.
Then one day I simply say: ENOUGH! With The Big C there is no damn-near-certain recipe. What is effective for one person could be a fail for another. There is only one way to suss the outcome, only one way to find out. And that is to begin.
I tell Dr H: I want the chemo.
Who knows but that chemo along with a dish of rice pudding – baked, and definitely with raisins – might, just might, make all the difference.
Rice pudding is definitely one of my go -to things to eat with stomach distress. But I’m not cooking much so I send Ken for Kozy Shack brand at the store.
So funny that you mention your quest for the perfect rice pudding recipe. Last week I found myself with about 2 cups of leftover rice and decided to make rice pudding. I went online and compared a few recipes, then selected the one which stated that you could add a few beaten eggs toward the end. I did so and stirred by arm off, but it never quite thickened like pudding should. That left me with sweetened rice milk with chunks of rice. Bill will never let me forget this disaster. I should have consulted the copy of the Betty Crocker cookbook that I inherited from my mother in law.! I hope that your effort was rewarded. Nancy, we are praying that the chemo works beyond your wildest expectations.