"How to Make Sure You Don't Die Alone" by Genesis Cubilette
Good wives cook good rice. That’s what my grandmother told me at ten years old. Women who can’t cook lead lonely lives, because people will always get hungry, so they’ll always go where there is food. Other days it would be about how men will always need something from “you”. They’ll take as they need, so “we” must do everything at our best to keep them coming, happily. And since she couldn’t tell me about what that really meant, she taught me how to make white rice.
White rice is a staple food, it goes with anything. If one should learn to cook anything, it should be this! That’s what I learned. If there are four people in the house, two mugs full of raw rice should do. Spill the rice into your oldest pot, the one with all the permanent stains that only come off with bleach and an angry scrub, if at all. Turn on the faucet, let the water cascade into the rice, and knead. Take handfuls of wet grains between your palms and rub your hands like flies do. Do it over and over. Rinse, and rinse, wonder, and wonder, and rinse, until the milky clouds stop forming above the rice. Remember to shut the faucet between rinses, because you don’t pay the bills.
What makes the water white is the starch. Those foggy waters hold all the nutrients of the rice, but they also make you fat, and you have to choose your figure, always. That's what she says. Because the fate of a wife is to become a mother, and therefore, fat, anyway, so the process shouldn’t be sped up. Especially not before trapping the man. Especially if you don’t want him to get what he needs somewhere else. Or, make him unhappy getting it from you.
When the clouds dissipate and the water becomes clear as glass, stop washing; let the water fill up to about a half inch above the rice. Cut the water. Start a flame; medium-to-high heat. Add vegetable oil until it floats up into a circle as big as a coaster. Add salt, about 8 shakes. Add some more on the palm of your left hand too, then throw it over your shoulder and under your breath, cuss at the devil, praying for you to die alone. Stir with purpose. Then, let it sit until the pot trades that extra half-inch of water for bubbles; this is the spirit of the pot. My grandma says the bubbles come from muscle memory – the history of what cooks in the pot. One day you’ll cook without having to think about what you’re doing.
During this part, you pause and worry if your rice will turn out too sticky, or too stiff. You think about the empty, rice-less (everything-less) home you’ll have if you never get it right. You will get it right though, because it’s relatively easy. It’s rice. And the more you get it right, the more you’ll wonder about the history behind men needing you to get it right, not whatever history this stained pot has had. Anyway, stir up the bubbling rice the way you picture your mother did it, and like her mother demonstrated. Be concerned about the times they got it wrong, and what their consequences were. Lower the heat; low-to-medium. Put a lid on it, because this time, the water that evaporates needs to condensate at the lid and fall back into where it came from. The rice will swell in the pot, just like in the bellies it’ll end up in. Just like yours. Wait 5 minutes, and stir one more time, then extinguish the flame. Your rice is done, maybe.
Call someone into the kitchen to taste your rice and see if “something’s missing.” You can’t do it yourself, it’s just a rule... When they tell you it needs salt, add four shakes to your rice. Fold it in with your wooden spoon, it has to be wooden, I forgot to mention that. Then add more salt to your left palm and throw it over your shoulder. This time harder. “F you.” The devil won’t win. Not even if the rice burns, or you become fat, or your man leaves you, or that other thing. But hurry and sweep up the floor because you can’t hold a family in a house full of salt. More than that, you don’t want your grandmother to give you the lesson about what happens to women with dirty floors. Even more than that, where you’ll end up if you keep cussin’.
