Sunshine and Olly

by Jonathan Blaustein

I may have brought norovirus to the New World.

(Apologies.)

It’s not certain, of course.

No one’s accused me of such.

But I’ve previously mentioned I took ill within hours of returning from Poland in late October.

I pulled into the driveway at midnight, and was puking in the bushes, (literally,) and lying down on the grass, so as not to pass out, by 11am.

Can’t remember the last time I vomited on foliage, but needs must.

Fuck, was I sick.








I wrote here, previously, the virus reset my gut bacteria, and I’m not kidding.

Jessie got sick three days after I did, and went through the same process.

Nasty, violent bouts of illness.

But then weeks and weeks of recovery, with a very picky body.

(We both lost weight and strength too, though it’s all back by now.)

I keep reading about, and hearing about, this nasty norovirus going around. 

I picked mine up somewhere en route, or mid-air.

No ordinary bug, whatever the hell I had changed my cooking. Introduced new ideas.

(Including reimagining old ones.)







Today, I wanted to touch base, because things have changed since my last post.

(I told you it was coming.)

My wife, Jessie, wrote two fantastic pieces, and has gotten some lovely feedback. (Thanks, everyone!)

I’ve also edited the first draft from a writer who submitted a great review of a museum performance, in a mystery city in the Southwest.

New voices have arrived!

And I love being an editor.

But I still have work to do here. 

I’m overdue to review Loli Kantor’s new book, “Call Me Lola.” I’d also like to write about Dana Stirling’s “why am I sad?”

The cooking hack articles, though, are really fun for me. 

I told our prospective writers, I believe, (hopefully you do too,) the Sunshine and Olly house style is to be honest, entertaining, and helpful.

Today’s recipe is as simple as it gets, and will challenge some traditional assumptions. 

So let’s get to it.







For years, I struggled to get my kids to eat brown rice.

It was the only kind of rice I made.

(Jessie would do a risotto every three years, but that’s about it.)

Theo blamed braces, but even after they were removed, claimed the rice would get stuck in his teeth.

My kids eat EVERYTHING I cook, but brown rice was the exception. 

So we’d always throw the leftovers away a week later.

White rice, I was always told, had no nutritional value. (Or at least way less.)

Brown rice good, white rice bad.

Right?

Well, no.

If no one eats brown rice, then it’s like a fucking tree falling in the woods.

Sure enough, in the post-norovirus world, I found a bag of long-grain white rice in the pantry that Jessie had bought in a bout of post-pandemic prepping. 

It was useless, as I never made white rice.

Lo and behold, I said, “What the fuck. Let’s find out.”

I adjusted the time on the Instant Pot down from my normal 28 minutes, to 24.

Then settled on 23.

That’s 23 minutes on low pressure in an Instant Pot, or rice cooker. 


2.5 cups water
2 cups long grain white rice
1/2 t plus to taste kosher salt
2 T plus to taste salted butter


That’s it.

If you grew up eating in American Chinese restaurants, (as I did,) flaky-yet-chewy white rice, sticking together or not, was the backbone of the meal.

Adding the butter boosts the protein and fat, adds calcium, and the white rice has some protein, carbs, and a touch of iron on its own. 

I can eat it alone, for breakfast, like a Caucasian congee. (Is it OK to say that?)







Jessie’s started making curries, and it goes perfectly with that.

We’ve had it on nachos, in stew. 

The white rice microwaves well in no time, is inexpensive, and very filling. 

My growing, athlete teenagers are insatiable, but this hits their gut and creates a pause.

Plus?

It’s a whole food.

Every.Fucking.Article in the NYT or WaPo these days is about the dangers of processed and ultra processed foods.

Almost everything is bad for you.

This rice may lack superfood nutrients, but it accompanies other foods possessing those nutrients well, and also offers other caloric benefits.

Try it, and you’ll see what I’m talking about. 

Lastly, I want to explain that awful headline.

(If you’ve read this far, you deserve it.)

As I keep telling Theo, Trump is the master troll. The ne plus ultra. A god among men. 

The best there ever was.

So Trump 2.0 will bring trolling back, hard.

(For the unaware, trolling means grabbing attention by saying outlandish things, even if one doesn’t believe them.)

I know “White Rice is Nice” is a terrible headline. 

And I did it anyway.

What are you gonna do about it!