The Spice Girls, and Baked Rice and Cheese with Broccoli

We've been renovating our house for the last three years. When I was living in New York, every time I came for a visit something would have changed. Paint colours went from cream to pale green, translucent 200 year old window panes were all of a sudden transparent, and, my personal favourite, doors that hadn't shut in 22 years suddenly closed without protest. Workmen popped up at odd moments, and I had to remind myself NOT to walk around naked or wearing only undies just in case they came in the house.

This summer in particular, the entire house was painted, including the barn, which was beginning to look like something out of Deliverance. Mum got this amazing team of painters from Ireland who a)did the best job I've ever seen and b)did it cleanly, quietly, and insanely fast. They also had Irish accents and were painfully polite and charming, and in the face of that I am afraid the fact that I went to Wellesley and am a firm 21st century feminist went COMPLETELY out of the window. I spent the few weeks they were here bringing out batches of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies, simpering, and generally behaving like a ninny. I'm not proud of it, but I defy anyone with an ounce of estrogen not to do the same thing.


Jessie Wilcox Smith

The last room in the house to be done is my bedroom. It's the bedroom I've had since I was six. It's funny going through the layers of your childhood. Jessie Wilcox Smith posters of cherubic little girls and dogs were replaced by maps of London and Paris, which in turn were replaced by Heath Ledger and George Clooney. The ceiling swirls with silver shooting stars and comets, I painted and glittered them myself, and the closet bears evidence to my vintage phase with red velvet cocktail dresses and blue tulle monstrosities from the 80's.


We ALL remember this Vanity Fair spread. It will go down in history as one of the most beautiful of all time. Taking it down, I found the moustache my cousin Tom drew on his face when I wasn't looking.

My book collection is perhaps one of the most epic ever created. Take two parents, one only vaguely American, both in independent bookselling, and both determined to raise the most literary Type-A daughter of all time. What do you get? A hell of a lot of books. It's going to take a while to sort through everything and divide into donation, sell, and keep until death. Right now, trickily enough, the keep until death pile is the largest. It involves a lot of cooing, a lot of tears, several sit down in the middle of a dusty floor and read this book from start to finishes, a lot of oh god why the hell did I buy this this book sucks, and quite a few what do you mean you don't like this book I thought you did no I always hated its. I've decided I will feature the good ones here. Maybe you all will know them, or maybe it will be just another validation that my literary upbringing was quite different from anyone else's.

BEFORE I DO THAT THOUGH

I must must must share what I found yesterday. I was going through the shelves that house my, ahem, CASSETTE COLLECTION (thank you) and in the midst of Claire Bloom renditions of Swan Lake, The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe and, of course The Hobbit, I found, dear reader, THIS.

You guys I have this ON CASSETTE TAPE.
AND I STARTED SINGING IT IMMEDIATELY.
AND I STILL KNOW ALL THE WORDS.
AND THE DANCE MOVES

Now THAT is one for the archives. The best bit is that it doesn't end there. I also have BOTH albums and ALL the singles. All on cassette. All very, very, VERY well played cassettes. Mum wouldn't let me throw them out. She says wait 20 years I can make a fortune. They are back on the shelf in a place of honour. And I gotta tell you, doing hill repeats up a mountain goes a LOT faster when "Wannabe" is playing on a loop in your head.

 

Try it and see.

You're welcome.

 

After a small dance party, I asked Mum what she wanted for dinner. She said Mac and Cheese. (FYI, big fat zero on the Beetle Friendly scale.) In December, I made her White Mac and Cheese with cauliflower, Kamut fettuccine, Mozzarella, and Gruyere. It was a resounding success. We had cauliflower and we had Kamut pasta and I could have made the same thing again, but I decided to invent a new comfort food:

BAKED RICE AND CHEESE WITH CAULIFLOWER AND BROCCOLI

Ridiculously easy. Ridiculously good to eat on a grey New England evening. I used Arborio, which is the kind used for risotto. Next time I'll use brown rice I think but we had an open box of Arborio so that's what went in. This is another pantry clean out dish, actually, which I'm realising most of my cooking is these days.

• Arborio or your rice of choice 
• Small head each of Broccoli and Cauliflower, chopped into florets
• Olive Oil
• Salt and Pepper to taste
• Cheese! Whatever you can find in your cheese drawer.

If you are like us, there is A LOT of cheese in your refrigerator. A lot of different kinds. Currently we've got Goat, Feta, Camembert, Gruyere, Swiss, a few different blues, and some Parmesan. What I do when I make mac and cheese or in the case of the above dish, is use all the heels I can find. I will also note that as I am cleaning out the cheese drawer I just MIGHT be declaiming loudly that omg how many things are in here why do you keep buying cheese if we have so much there's only one person in this house who eats cheese and it's you you can't buy any more until you eat the rest of this this is pathological and on and on and on. It might happen. I'm just saying. In any event, into this one went  Emmental, Parmesan, Brie, and Shredded Gruyere.






Arborio is only tricky in that you have to, absolutely HAVE TO stir it constantly. I added a bit of olive oil whilst it was cooking just to keep the pot greased, and added water as it was absorbed. Chopping veggies at the same time next to the pot means you can keep an eye on it and keep it stirred on a regular basis. I only cooked it for 10 minutes (it takes about 20) because it was going to cook in the oven.

I mean really. At this point WHAT CAN GO WRONG?



Make sure it's mixed properly otherwise the
tops of the veggies will burn in the oven.

At the 10 minute mark I stirred in the cheeses and a bit more water, turned off the heat, and added the chopped broccoli and cauliflower, making sure the veggies were totally incorporated. I poured a tiny bit more olive oil over the top and gave it a healthy sprinkling of Parmesan, then popped it in the oven at 400 and let it bake, uncovered, for about 20 minutes. After 20 I put the lid on and reduced the heat to 300, and let it go for another 10. Just stick a fork in the broccoli on top to see if it's done. Broccoli in my experience cooks a bit longer than cauliflower, so that should be your vegetable test.






Burnt Cheese. No problem.
Burnt Broccoli. Problem.

The finished product. Photo came out a bit orangey, but you get the idea.
Plus shooting with the flash makes it look like a crime scene.

This is a keeper, btw. It received the official stamp of approval from Mum. Well, not so much a "stamp" as what she says when something is amazing. It's always the same thing:

"omg you have to make this again do you think I could eat this for breakfast?"