Life in a Nutshell

The Perfect Rice

"How you make rice?"

My mother-in-law peered up at me with a piercing squint and pursed lips. She was sixty-eight years old, but still sharp enough to make me wince. Even though I loved her dearly, we struggled with the language barrier.

Her son and I had recently married, and I had come to her house to visit, while he was out doing yard work.

I was intimidated by the question, but I knew this one. Yes, I could make rice. My mid-western country ranch girl upbringing had taught me how to cook, so I was excited, and I eagerly told her that yes, indeed. I knew how to make rice.

So, in simple English and a lot of hand gestures, I shared my skill. First, you take two cups of the handiest long-grain white rice you can find, straight from the plastic bag it came in, and put it in your copper bottom Paul Revere saucepan. Then add two and a half cups of tap water. Set to boil on the stovetop, and once it reaches boil, cover with the steel lid, turn the heat down to low, simmer for twenty minutes. Then remove the lid, fluff with a fork, add butter, salt and pepper.

Et voilà. Rice!

Perfect with Salsbury steak, or Chicken Cacciatore, right? I smiled at her, assured of my success. Her eyes were as round as I'd ever seen them, her mouth agape, and she was mumbling something in Japanese, as she turned from me and shuffled around her kitchen.

She shook her head, once vehemently, but yet understated. An emphatic quick negative movement. "No," she said sharply. "I show you how make rice. You watch me, I teach."

"First you get rice cooker. You have rice cooker?"

"No, I don't have one, it's not something that's necessary, a pan on the stove will do the same thing, right?"

More mumbling.

She rummaged through her countertop items and pulled a white Zojirushi rice cooker from the back and shoved it toward my chest.

"You take this one home, I never use anymore, too big. You cook rice in here, not on stove. This much better."

Then she moved to the sink and motioned for me to follow. In the sink was a large plastic colander with tiny slits in it, and she had a small clear plastic cup (that was smaller than a standard measuring cup) and scooped three of these cups of dry Nishiki rice into the colander in the sink.

"Use Nishiki rice, any other kind of rice bad. Not Japanese rice. Japanese rice, best rice. First you wash. You must wash rice. Rice dirty, why you never wash rice?" She looked at me like I had told her I like to eat with my feet.

I was baffled. No, I'd never washed my rice before, and it always tasted just fine. But as I watched her rinse the rice in the colander, I saw a milky white starch flow from the water.

"You wash rice, until water runs clear."

After three or four times of rinsing the rice under cold water, the water was finally mostly clear, and she scooped the rice back into the cooker.

She covered the rice with four of the cups (that were not cups) of water and added the lid. Then she turned to me.

"Now you let soak twenty minutes. Rice take one hour to finish. Twenty minutes soak, twenty minutes cook, twenty minutes rest. Then you can eat. Now you want tea? I tell you a story."

She offered me her best matcha green tea in western style mugs. She liked the western style because of her arthritis, and America had mugs with handles. She grinned and raised her restaurant-style cup with the thick handle and a green pinstripe around the sturdy ceramic lip.

We sat on her low couch and waited for the rice to finish. We had time, it was going to be an hour.

Then she told me a story I've never forgotten.

The story of perfect rice, from a woman who survived insurmountable odds and tragedy, who with humor and grace shared with me this personal story and many others because I was now family.

It was dark when the sirens would go off. Most nights the sirens would sound, and we had to put out every light. Mama would make us put on every piece of clothing we had. Every shirt, every robe or coat, every pair of pants and skirt. We didn't have much so it wasn't difficult to wear.

Then we'd run from our house and hide in the woods behind our village. Everyone would hide there and watch the bombs land and fires start. I was the middle child, two older brothers, one younger sister, and one younger brother. We were always hungry. No eggs, no meat, only a few vegetables. Most of the food was taken to feed the soldiers. Sometimes we'd go hunt grasshoppers and pick millet seed because there was no rice to eat. Everybody was hungry.

My dad was an architect, he had connections in the business world, and was able to buy things on the black market, so once a week we would have real rice.

You know in Japanese houses there's a fire pit in the center of the main room. That pit is the kitchen. You build a fire and then put the cast iron pot on the coals and soak the rice overnight.

That night the sirens sounded, and we ran away into the woods, with all our clothes on, but that night our house was bombed, and we watched the fire burn it down to the ground. I was so glad I had listened to my mother and worn all my clothes.

We stayed out with everyone all night and only came back to see the burned-up house in the morning. Everything was gone. We had nothing left. But my father had bought me new shoes on the black market. I was the only one in the family that had shoes because I was in school. My brothers were working, and the little ones were too small for school.

Since I had shoes, it was my duty to walk on the ashes to see if we could salvage anything from the house. I was walking around, and I could feel the soles of my shoes burning, but I was looking for anything we could keep. I saw the rings of our iron rice pot and called for a stick to lift it from the hole it was in. My father and brothers gave me the stick and I picked up the iron pot, still intact.

We sat it down on the ground and opened the lid. The rice was perfectly cooked and steaming. We all had food for the day and things didn't seem so bad.

So, rice is important. I always remember to make good rice.

I stared at my mother-in-law in astonishment. This small, hunched woman had more beauty and strength in my eyes than any other person in that moment. Of all the things she could have told me or could have remembered from that traumatic night; the bombs, the fire, the fear of dying, losing everything. No, she remembered the perfect rice, and that she and her family had food that day. She remembered the fact that she was able to help provide for her siblings in the middle of utter poverty and horror.

I always make our rice like she taught me. I'm on my fourth Zojirushi rice cooker, since that day over twenty-five years ago. It is used regularly. I wash my rice every time, and I always try to use Nishiki short-grain Japanese rice.

I try to remember this story whenever things go wrong. When life feels like nothing but hurt, betrayal, offense, and pain. When the bills pile up, and stress is everywhere.

I remember the perfect rice.