“Hey dear, I have some news for you,” I told Ming. We were driving somewhere in town, and I was chowing down on a bowl of brown rice and kale for my breakfast. “You did it. I changed. I prefer brown rice now.”
A doctor back in Las Vegas told Ming to switch to brown rice. He said white rice and all refined carbs were bad for Ming’s triglycerides. I’m not sure what a triglyceride is–some kind of lipid? Maybe an acid? I know they’re related to heart health. My triglycerides are fine.
The doctor was Filipino, and he told Ming, “I know it’s hard to cut back on white rice. Rice is the bread of our people.”
Ever since, Ming and I have been making jokes about the bread of our people. Wow, it’s been probably two years we’ve been making fun of this ass doctor back through time.
He’s an ass for other reasons, not the brown rice advice.
analogy
“Brown rice is more real,” I told Ming, still eating my breakfast as passenger. “White rice feels fake, like Disneyland. Brown rice is real like a swamp. No animatronics are going to jump out of brown rice. But maybe an alligator.”
I imagined traveling on a boat through frenetic It’s a Small World vs traveling on a boat through a foggy, mysterious swamp.
“I have teeth–might as well use them while I got them,” I told Ming.
Yes, I’m grateful I can chew. I can’t remember where we were driving. But it was a delicious breakfast. I put Earth Balance and half an avocado on top, with salt.
white rice
Later I ate some white rice, and it was true: White rice felt insubstantial, like joke rice. What a strange, long trip it’s been. I remember telling a coworker at the software store around 1996, “I just don’t like brown rice.”
I thought how Brown Rice would be a nice name for a half-Asian, half-Hispanic rapper. But many Asians are brown without needing mixedness. But I love mixedness.
The secret that I finally understand is that brown rices vary. Brown basmati, short grain, long grain. How we cook it matters too. How much water to use, and then how I season it.
conclusion
I forgot to write a conclusion for this post. It ended abuptly. But now I’m adding this part. Yes, me typing, right now.
Thank you for keeping me and Ming in your prayers and believing in our little family. Thank you for supporting all the ways we do the work of love and show up for life.
One reply on “brown rice”
Oh the irony.
This doctor was trying to connect over the restrictions on white rice with the projected notions that I ate a lot of white rice. Not all Asians are similar.
As a fifth generation Chinese American and a Jewish Pagan, my “Bread of my People” is matza, maybe whole wheat. The “Bread of my People” is the cooking my beloved spouse makes.
That is why the irony is so funny.