Rice in the Caldero: Lessons en mi Casa
I am sitting in a new nail salon on Sunday afternoon. The owner is too cheap to have air conditioning on even though it is hot and muggy outside. I sit there sweltering and trying to fan myself with a magazine. The place is packed. It’s in a nondescript strip mall similar to so many others in New Jersey. What makes this one different, though, is that unlike so many of the nail salons by where I live, this one is open on Sundays. I know! What a novelty! I came upon the salon accidentally, when I was picking up Obie from Pet Smart, where he had just been groomed. I quickly drove home to drop him off and turned right around to the place.
I was in dire need of a pedicure and was excited at the prospect of being able to get one on a day when all the other salons are usually closed. Sometimes Sunday is the only day I get a chance to do my nails.
When I get there, aside from the blast of hot air that greets me, I notice an Asian lady in the first chair using an electric tool to file a lady’s nail tips to a nice square shape. Next to her are two more Asian women in similar capacities. Then I see two Spanish women in the back, shiny with perspiration, working to exhaustion, under such poor conditions, on pedicures. I sigh. Part of me wonders what elements in the universe had to align in order for me to be in a better place in life and not them. Their customers, a couple of older white women, alternately chat on their cells, talk to each other or read. What they do not do is acknowledge the ladies working on them. I have noticed the trend a lot lately – Asian-owned salons employing Spanish women to do the pedicures, so they no longer have to touch anyone’s feet, unless absolutely necessary. I try to look away because part me is reminded that, were it not for my dad, who gave her the luxury of staying home most of her life, my mom could very well have been one of these women, worked to the bone as if being punished for their station in life.
These Spanish women, a Central and a South American, I learn when it is my turn, live far from the nice area where the salon is located. I talk to them, we laugh, small talk is so agreeable. The Asian owner looks suspiciously over at us once or twice. They tell me their neighborhoods are known for crime and poverty. I smile - politely, I hope because I certainly don't want them to think I pity them. I don't. I admire their tenacity. I pretend I am not familiar with the towns. Crimes? News to me, I say. With little English, they spend their days listening and following orders, scrubbing the feet and washing the tubs for women who can afford little luxuries such as these. They know these luxuries do not fall under their budgets and they are fine with it. I know what you're thinking. I am entirely too aware of the irony of that statement because I, too, am one of these women whose budget somehow permits.
While I wait for my turn, I read the book I brought in trying to ignore the heat. In my shorts I am sticking to the faux leather sofa, beads of sweat slipping between my breasts. Next to me, two women about my age are talking. I am not paying attention until a phrase catches my ears. The blonde one says: “So when I tried to make the white rice, I really blew it. Nearly caused a fire in the kitchen! Greg said I should just stick to the box mixes because it’s harder for me to screw that up.”{{Laughs}}
I heard ‘white rice’ and started to listen (eavesdrop) discreetly. Her friend, the brunette, complains, equally frustrated with the degree of difficulty, the sheer complexity of the art of rice making. “I know!," she says, "I don’t even bother trying anymore, to be honest. When I have to make rice, I prefer to just swing by the Chinese place and pick up a couple of those little take-out boxes. It is just easier that way.” She says the word Chinese a little louder than necessary and we all instinctively look up at the salon workers, but they’re too busy to notice a thing. Either that, or they are inwardly laughing and thinking: “Stupid Americans.”
While I am slightly amused at the exasperated manner in which these two women discuss the fine art of rice making, I am also saddened. I could make white rice with my eyes closed!
It's not a second before the memories flood me almost instantly at the first mention of the white rice. I am suddenly tinged with a kind of warmth that brings me back home.
I am at my mother’s side, a child looking up, as she stirs the white rice in the Caldero. The familiar cast iron pot, a fixture in my home all my life, at once receives and repels the flames beneath it. Perhaps that is its secret to perfect rice? No pot I have ever seen here can duplicate it, although today you can buy one in certain neighborhoods. Years have blackened the bottom of her pot, a sign of countless meals lovingly prepared. We are in our kitchen on 78th street in Jackson Heights. We’re in the second apartment we occupied, 1-B, that was separated from the door-to-door ones on every floor, off to the side, up four steps, closer to the exit of the building. Ugly dark blue wallpaper, with shiny silver squggly lines and big, round lime green dots cover the walls and darken the small kitchen. It's the 70s, baby, and it's all so groovy!
An old, huge porcelain sink holds a few dishes to be washed. The refrigerator near the entrance of the kitchen is small, old, in need of replacement. The window is open, as it almost always was when she cooked. The cupboard above the stove is open and I can see all the ingredients of the well-stocked Latino home: Sazón, Adobo, Recaito Goya, the achiote in its aluminum holder with the slotted top. In the background, Radio WADO 1280 is playing music, or talking. She is smiling and enjoying herself. Side to side she swings her hips, a habit she would always have, as things cooked on her stoves.
In her kitchen, things are learned by watching her. Sometimes rice is purposely burned, a careful art of knowing the precise in-between that will make the “cucayo” tasty and not bitter. Cucayo is the result of the burnt rice that sticks and remains at the bottom of the pot. The Caldero is not Teflon and so everything sticks to it. In this case, though, it is exactly what you want it to do. When you burn it just right, a shade between golden brown and black, you can peel back the pieces and eat them right out of your hand.
In my mom’s Caldero, the water is near the top. She has already dropped the heavily rinsed dry rice into the pot on top of the lightly heated Mazola oil. The large, yellow jug, a staple in our home, is wiped down of leaking oil and put back away under the sink. She carefully measures and adds just the right amount of salt. She stirs methodically, in the same direction, counter clockwise, cautious to remain at the outer edge of the Caldero and careful not to spill any of the oily water onto the stovetop. I can hear the scrape of the large aluminum spoon as it grazes the bottom in that circular fashion. I am a child, but I am tall enough to see the rice-making process up close, old enough to discuss the importance of rice in the Latino household.
White rice is that one, all encompassing link we Latinos have as a people. Whether our accents are different, or our dialects are different, our habits are different, or our customs and countries are different, rice is the one common denominator. It is how we know we are home. Go into any traditional Latino household and if rice is not part of the meal, something is wrong. Someone will inadvertently ask for it.
Along the course of her rice making, a lesson is poorly being disguised. She shares long-held hints, traditions and tips: “Don’t add too much salt! If you do, add more water! Make sure you rinse the dry rice until the water runs clear. The oil should be hot, but not smoking. Two cups of rice is enough for just the four of us. It’s four cups if we want to have leftovers or make cucayo later. It's five or more if you're having company.” I nod. She laughs a little. I can see her beam with pride. I am her little girl, at her apron, learning to cook. She probably thinks I will have forgotten all she said by the time my bath rolls around. But I absorb these little treasures. I hold them in my mind at first and, for safe keeping, then in the deepest recesses of my brain to refer to later on in my life countless times over.
She is sitting now at the small table pushed against the wall in our narrow kitchen. It is a humble table where we eat each night, the four of us; its white Formica top and aluminum legs are sturdy and dependable. I sit across from her. We are waiting for the rice to absorb all of the water. She tells me that rice is something you have to watch. You don’t just walk away and let the stove do the work for you. She explains that cooking is action. You are the master and you make the decisions. If cooking could happen alone with just a stove, where would the pride in it be, she questions. There is no set-it and forget-it mentality here. You’re cooking for your family. It is something you take pride in. It is something that you seek to pour in more than just the ingredients called for in the recipe. You must always add heaps of love. That phrase: "You must add love," is so wonderfully soothing to me that I almost want to cry. But my mom is smiling, and so I hold back the waterworks.
Midway through the talk, she stands abruptly and takes the half step to the stove and lifts the Caldero’s lid. “See? It’s dry and now has to be turned before it sticks too much,” she says to me. I walk over too and I peek in and see a mound of bright white, shiny rice in place of the water and dry hard rice from moments ago. I smile and feel hungry immediately, my mind trained to link this food with hunger. “Can I have some?” I ask her. “No, it is not ready.” Then, with an artist’s hand, she turns the rice over in spoonfuls, one at a time, spinning the Caldero on the stove as she goes along, then using the back of the spoon to flatten what she’s turned. “Just a few more minutes,” she says, “We want to make sure it’s perfect.”
In my own home, as an adult, I have tried to replicate my mother's cupboard. I find the same ingredients in the same sizes like a proud Latina, a good daughter. Despite my husband's reservations about the open-topped achiote can, sitting on a small plate in our cupboard, perpetually leaking orange oil, I must have it and see it there when I open that cupoboard. It means many things to me all at once. I am grateful that he lets me keep it. I am moved to tears when I catch him quietly wiping up the spilled oil on the little plate and replacing it without saying a word. Each time I see it, it is proof she was here, in my life and she played so many roles while she was my mother.
When it’s time, she smiles at me and lifts the large spoon, laden with rice, and drops the mound onto a small blue and white dish. She hands it to me, still steaming from the stove, and hands me a small spoon. I cradle it and take my small treasure back to the table and sit down. I look at it a minute. I can almost taste the moist, gently salted rice on my tongue. I imagine rolling it around and swallowing it. The feeling of it fills me instantly with gratitude.
I lift the spoonful to my mouth. “Careful,” she says gently, “It’s hot!” She walks over and blows on it a little for me. I put the spoonful of rice in my mouth and close my eyes all at once. I savor the freshly prepared rice. I roll it around my mouth like I just envisioned and I take it all in. It is as she promised: Perfect!
I was in dire need of a pedicure and was excited at the prospect of being able to get one on a day when all the other salons are usually closed. Sometimes Sunday is the only day I get a chance to do my nails.
When I get there, aside from the blast of hot air that greets me, I notice an Asian lady in the first chair using an electric tool to file a lady’s nail tips to a nice square shape. Next to her are two more Asian women in similar capacities. Then I see two Spanish women in the back, shiny with perspiration, working to exhaustion, under such poor conditions, on pedicures. I sigh. Part of me wonders what elements in the universe had to align in order for me to be in a better place in life and not them. Their customers, a couple of older white women, alternately chat on their cells, talk to each other or read. What they do not do is acknowledge the ladies working on them. I have noticed the trend a lot lately – Asian-owned salons employing Spanish women to do the pedicures, so they no longer have to touch anyone’s feet, unless absolutely necessary. I try to look away because part me is reminded that, were it not for my dad, who gave her the luxury of staying home most of her life, my mom could very well have been one of these women, worked to the bone as if being punished for their station in life.
These Spanish women, a Central and a South American, I learn when it is my turn, live far from the nice area where the salon is located. I talk to them, we laugh, small talk is so agreeable. The Asian owner looks suspiciously over at us once or twice. They tell me their neighborhoods are known for crime and poverty. I smile - politely, I hope because I certainly don't want them to think I pity them. I don't. I admire their tenacity. I pretend I am not familiar with the towns. Crimes? News to me, I say. With little English, they spend their days listening and following orders, scrubbing the feet and washing the tubs for women who can afford little luxuries such as these. They know these luxuries do not fall under their budgets and they are fine with it. I know what you're thinking. I am entirely too aware of the irony of that statement because I, too, am one of these women whose budget somehow permits.
While I wait for my turn, I read the book I brought in trying to ignore the heat. In my shorts I am sticking to the faux leather sofa, beads of sweat slipping between my breasts. Next to me, two women about my age are talking. I am not paying attention until a phrase catches my ears. The blonde one says: “So when I tried to make the white rice, I really blew it. Nearly caused a fire in the kitchen! Greg said I should just stick to the box mixes because it’s harder for me to screw that up.”{{Laughs}}
I heard ‘white rice’ and started to listen (eavesdrop) discreetly. Her friend, the brunette, complains, equally frustrated with the degree of difficulty, the sheer complexity of the art of rice making. “I know!," she says, "I don’t even bother trying anymore, to be honest. When I have to make rice, I prefer to just swing by the Chinese place and pick up a couple of those little take-out boxes. It is just easier that way.” She says the word Chinese a little louder than necessary and we all instinctively look up at the salon workers, but they’re too busy to notice a thing. Either that, or they are inwardly laughing and thinking: “Stupid Americans.”
While I am slightly amused at the exasperated manner in which these two women discuss the fine art of rice making, I am also saddened. I could make white rice with my eyes closed!
It's not a second before the memories flood me almost instantly at the first mention of the white rice. I am suddenly tinged with a kind of warmth that brings me back home.
I am at my mother’s side, a child looking up, as she stirs the white rice in the Caldero. The familiar cast iron pot, a fixture in my home all my life, at once receives and repels the flames beneath it. Perhaps that is its secret to perfect rice? No pot I have ever seen here can duplicate it, although today you can buy one in certain neighborhoods. Years have blackened the bottom of her pot, a sign of countless meals lovingly prepared. We are in our kitchen on 78th street in Jackson Heights. We’re in the second apartment we occupied, 1-B, that was separated from the door-to-door ones on every floor, off to the side, up four steps, closer to the exit of the building. Ugly dark blue wallpaper, with shiny silver squggly lines and big, round lime green dots cover the walls and darken the small kitchen. It's the 70s, baby, and it's all so groovy!
An old, huge porcelain sink holds a few dishes to be washed. The refrigerator near the entrance of the kitchen is small, old, in need of replacement. The window is open, as it almost always was when she cooked. The cupboard above the stove is open and I can see all the ingredients of the well-stocked Latino home: Sazón, Adobo, Recaito Goya, the achiote in its aluminum holder with the slotted top. In the background, Radio WADO 1280 is playing music, or talking. She is smiling and enjoying herself. Side to side she swings her hips, a habit she would always have, as things cooked on her stoves.
In her kitchen, things are learned by watching her. Sometimes rice is purposely burned, a careful art of knowing the precise in-between that will make the “cucayo” tasty and not bitter. Cucayo is the result of the burnt rice that sticks and remains at the bottom of the pot. The Caldero is not Teflon and so everything sticks to it. In this case, though, it is exactly what you want it to do. When you burn it just right, a shade between golden brown and black, you can peel back the pieces and eat them right out of your hand.
In my mom’s Caldero, the water is near the top. She has already dropped the heavily rinsed dry rice into the pot on top of the lightly heated Mazola oil. The large, yellow jug, a staple in our home, is wiped down of leaking oil and put back away under the sink. She carefully measures and adds just the right amount of salt. She stirs methodically, in the same direction, counter clockwise, cautious to remain at the outer edge of the Caldero and careful not to spill any of the oily water onto the stovetop. I can hear the scrape of the large aluminum spoon as it grazes the bottom in that circular fashion. I am a child, but I am tall enough to see the rice-making process up close, old enough to discuss the importance of rice in the Latino household.
White rice is that one, all encompassing link we Latinos have as a people. Whether our accents are different, or our dialects are different, our habits are different, or our customs and countries are different, rice is the one common denominator. It is how we know we are home. Go into any traditional Latino household and if rice is not part of the meal, something is wrong. Someone will inadvertently ask for it.
Along the course of her rice making, a lesson is poorly being disguised. She shares long-held hints, traditions and tips: “Don’t add too much salt! If you do, add more water! Make sure you rinse the dry rice until the water runs clear. The oil should be hot, but not smoking. Two cups of rice is enough for just the four of us. It’s four cups if we want to have leftovers or make cucayo later. It's five or more if you're having company.” I nod. She laughs a little. I can see her beam with pride. I am her little girl, at her apron, learning to cook. She probably thinks I will have forgotten all she said by the time my bath rolls around. But I absorb these little treasures. I hold them in my mind at first and, for safe keeping, then in the deepest recesses of my brain to refer to later on in my life countless times over.
She is sitting now at the small table pushed against the wall in our narrow kitchen. It is a humble table where we eat each night, the four of us; its white Formica top and aluminum legs are sturdy and dependable. I sit across from her. We are waiting for the rice to absorb all of the water. She tells me that rice is something you have to watch. You don’t just walk away and let the stove do the work for you. She explains that cooking is action. You are the master and you make the decisions. If cooking could happen alone with just a stove, where would the pride in it be, she questions. There is no set-it and forget-it mentality here. You’re cooking for your family. It is something you take pride in. It is something that you seek to pour in more than just the ingredients called for in the recipe. You must always add heaps of love. That phrase: "You must add love," is so wonderfully soothing to me that I almost want to cry. But my mom is smiling, and so I hold back the waterworks.
Midway through the talk, she stands abruptly and takes the half step to the stove and lifts the Caldero’s lid. “See? It’s dry and now has to be turned before it sticks too much,” she says to me. I walk over too and I peek in and see a mound of bright white, shiny rice in place of the water and dry hard rice from moments ago. I smile and feel hungry immediately, my mind trained to link this food with hunger. “Can I have some?” I ask her. “No, it is not ready.” Then, with an artist’s hand, she turns the rice over in spoonfuls, one at a time, spinning the Caldero on the stove as she goes along, then using the back of the spoon to flatten what she’s turned. “Just a few more minutes,” she says, “We want to make sure it’s perfect.”
In my own home, as an adult, I have tried to replicate my mother's cupboard. I find the same ingredients in the same sizes like a proud Latina, a good daughter. Despite my husband's reservations about the open-topped achiote can, sitting on a small plate in our cupboard, perpetually leaking orange oil, I must have it and see it there when I open that cupoboard. It means many things to me all at once. I am grateful that he lets me keep it. I am moved to tears when I catch him quietly wiping up the spilled oil on the little plate and replacing it without saying a word. Each time I see it, it is proof she was here, in my life and she played so many roles while she was my mother.
When it’s time, she smiles at me and lifts the large spoon, laden with rice, and drops the mound onto a small blue and white dish. She hands it to me, still steaming from the stove, and hands me a small spoon. I cradle it and take my small treasure back to the table and sit down. I look at it a minute. I can almost taste the moist, gently salted rice on my tongue. I imagine rolling it around and swallowing it. The feeling of it fills me instantly with gratitude.
I lift the spoonful to my mouth. “Careful,” she says gently, “It’s hot!” She walks over and blows on it a little for me. I put the spoonful of rice in my mouth and close my eyes all at once. I savor the freshly prepared rice. I roll it around my mouth like I just envisioned and I take it all in. It is as she promised: Perfect!
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