Of Rice Pudding & Romance

Right now, our house smells heavenly. The kitchen floor [the one we planned to replace right away, in 1994] is pocked and dented from decades of use, the wood floors could use a serious buffing and Fig managed to get some red temporary hair dye on her light green bedroom carpet [don't ask].

Still, our little yellow house is smelling good. And that's one thing I love about baking--its ability to lift the shabby to the inviting.

I've got rice pudding in the oven--Grandma Newman's Rice Pudding, to be exact, from the magazine Cook's Country Lost Recipes: Kitchen-Tested Heirloom Recipes Too Good to Forget. [How could I resist it in Kings after flipping through and seeing Oh My God Chicken; Screaming Noodles; Old-Fashioned Crullers, aka Naked Ladies with Their Legs Crossed--you can't make this stuff up; Butter Horn Rolls; and Orange Bourbon Cake?] My H. loves rice pudding.

It's baking in the old round 1950s glass Pyrex casserole that my parents got as a wedding gift. It fits in a silvery holder with fancy lid, so you can bake it functionally and serve it fashionably.

They always told the story of making rice pudding when they were newlyweds in their garden apartment in Dumont. [Today, my Dad pointed out, for the second time in a week, their brick corner apartment when I drove him from the bank to CVS, for Depends]. My Dad liked raisins, my mother didn't. So they each made a big separate batchful and slipped both into the oven. They told the story with laughter.

But now I wonder: Did the story also reinforce for me how they were different, and clung to their differences from the start? He was Italian and made red sauce on Sundays that we dipped our bread into for "sauce bread." She was Irish and made some Irish version of tomato sauce that involved bacon. Her pretty Irish mother, worse yet, was once known to use a can of Campbell's Tomato Soup over spaghetti.

Did the rice pudding lore somehow teach me not to compromise in marriage, to always seek what I want and feel is right, not what H. believes? Or should I have learned the lesson that it's okay in marriage to be different and still be happy? If I had grown up hearing how one wanted raisins and one didn't, so they made one big pan either his or her way, would I view things differently? Would I struggle less? Does it matter?

Food for thought. Meanwhile, the rice pudding is ready. I did ask H. and he said no raisins, so I skipped them. Anyway, Grandma Newman's recipe says they're optional.

So far, I like Grandma Newman. I think I like Grandma Newman a lot.