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Rice-boy

Mmm.. I'm truly living the student life now. I just polished off my evening meal - a tasty treat of a bowl and a half of rice. Yes, it's not exactly the most extravagant meal, but I assure you that I have lots of reasons for being so bland with my cooking. How about: I ran out of food? I finished up at the institute today expecting to get some shopping done - picking up spices and vegetables and stuff, and possibly some quick food for me to cook up as dinner. A variety of circumstances (mostly taking the form of trams) meant that I only had about 10 minutes to do my shopping before the supermarket closed. Luckily I had time to pick up a loaf of Mannheim bread, and a packet of cheese. People who knew me when I used to bring my own lunch to uni/work would remember that I was the master of the simple sandwich, so a slice of bread with cheese on it would count as a meal. The Germans seem to really like both their breads and their cheeses. I'm not so much a connoiseur of the fine breads and cheeses, and can't tell the difference between the varieties, so I just go with the cheapest one. I don't know if I can handle the terrible looks from other shoppers and checkout-people for much longer.

Armed with my bread (delicately topped with a fine sliver of pre-sliced generic cheese), I attempt to satiate my hunger, but have to leave some bread for breakfast. This results in me failing miserable, as by the time I'm done, I'm still feeling hungry. I check in the cupboards, and crack open the emergency rice ration. I'll be the first to admit I've been a bit spoilt when it comes to rice. When I wasn't getting a hold of rice cooked to perfection by someone else, I usually relied on the magic rice-cooker to make perfect rice. The whole cooking rice in a pot thing is a new thing for me, and to be honest, a bit of a pain in the arse. This is doubly true when you suck at making rice like I do. To avoid any potential embarrasment when I make boasts about my mad wicked cooking skills, I decided to practice up the cooking of rice. Last time I tried, a whole lot of rice ended up adhesing to the bottom of the pan much the way burnt sushi does. I think I've got the rice/water proportions right now, and I've of course scoured the internet for tips on getting the rice perfect. There was only minor deposits of sticky rice-stuff on the bottom of the pan today, so I'm counting that as a success. The actual rice was pretty damn soggy though, and some of it had melted, so I might have to re-think my timing for the rice to avoid any sub-atomic breakdown of the rice again.

So why the hell don't I just buy some meals? There are a whole bunch of restaurants in Heidelberg (yes - I checked, there are at least two Indian restaurants, there goes my business plan). I'm lacking the money to go out and eat at those places. At least I think I don't have the money. I haven't managed to log in to my internet banking site because I haven't picked up a TAN list for authorising transactions. It's a pretty neat system, and I feel (or would feel if I could log in) very safe banking over the internet. Another reason I don't know if I have enough money is that I'm also getting taxed really nastily here. I didn't feel bad about the tax until I realised the money that was being taken out of my scholarship payments for a pension weren't being funneled into a fund for me, but were being used to pay other old people for their pensions! Damn these Europeans and their silly socialistic leanings.

I do actually eat out though - you can find me most weekdays and Saturdays at the local student food-halls called the MENSA. The food ranges from poor to edible there. The poor food is the €2,05 meal, which is usually a set meal. Today they had tortellini pasta in some kind of cheesy sauce, a bowl of salad, and this orange stuff which tasted a bit like unset jelly. The buffet manages to stray into the edible part of the food spectrum, and for about €2,50 you get a plate full of food and a (free!) slice of bread.

This is the point where I start begging for money. You can donate to any cancer research charity, and I'm sure the money will eventually get to me. Donations are tax-deductible. Thanks for your support!

5 comments

Anonymous *

you bloody cheapskate!!
How to cook rice
- wash rice 3-4 times I hope that water is not chagred by the liter
- Let it sock with double the water for 5-10 minutes. This step will not cost you anything
- put it on high heat and let the water boil for about 2-3 mins.This step is expensive as you will be using heating device to max, however you will be compensating by reduing the heat to bare minimum and let the rice simmer for exactly the double the time it took for it to boil.

(5 min to get rice boiling than 10 mins to simmer)

Turn the gas off enjoy!! Phew more cost involved after this but than again dirty teath! toothbrush, tooth paste.. shall i go on.

Anonymous *

Don't wash the rice, it removes potentially nutritive substances from the rice. The one or two extra joules of energy derived from this crap could save your life! Dump rice in pot. Add water so that it covers the rice to a depth equal to the first joint on your index finger. Bring to the boil. Turn the heat off, and leave the lid on. Come back in about 15 minutes and consume rice.

This method avoids wasting potentiallly costly water and electricity/gas!

butercup *

Buy Kraft Easy Cheesy Macaroni and Cheese. That way your emergency rations are not only simple to cook, but yellow in colour, and they bounce satisfyingly in your tum-tum.

Anonymous *

Rice goes in a bowl.

Bowl goes in a pot.

Water goes into the bottom of above pot.

Apply heat to turn water into steam.

Steam until rice is perfect.

This method is REALLY hard to screw up, but I know you can do it! ;)

Hiren Joshi *

Hmm this is really odd. Blogger seems to be failing to email my comments to me! Didn't see these last two comments.

I'm not going with the macaroni cheese.

Ever.

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