Blue Rice Pudding

Have you ever seen Office Space? It was a favorite of mine in high school, which is strange considering that I had never had a job more difficult than watching children for a couple of hours, but that’s beside the point. I can jive with it now, especially with how bent out of shape the main character gets about people saying, “Sounds like someone’s got a case of the Mondays.” It’s not necessarily that I think there’s anything particularly great about Mondays — though I do tend to prefer them to Sunday evenings, as the anticipation of something bad is always worse than the thing itself (something that hyperventilating before tuberculosis shots taught me at a young age) — but I never really faulted Mondays just for being Mondays. It’s just another day; when it’s over, you’re one day closer to the weekend. How nice.

That was until yesterday morning, when I woke up, saw the grey sky out my window, and was suddenly overcome with resignation with regards to the fact that today was most definitely going to be the Last Judgement, Armageddon, whatever it is you want to call it. I thought about the day that I was about to face — the hours of work, the ridiculous commutes from one end of the city to another and back again — , and it took everything I had in me to pull myself out of bed and shuffle into the kitchen to sip my coffee and make my morning microwave oatmeal. I think I only did it because the idea of actually calling all the people who were depending on me on this particular Monday seemed even more overwhelming than actually dealing with everything I had to do.

I’m lucky, then, that things aren’t always as they appear. The grey skies lifted; the day moved by without problem or stress. I ended up having the time (between classes and taking pictures for freelance work) to take a walk through the center of the city and enjoy the midday sun. I do so enjoy being proven wrong.

Why blue rice pudding? Why not? Some sort of reference to Blue Monday? Meh. It’s far more likely that my “adult” self is remembering my childhood love of waffle mornings, when my mother would break out the waffle iron, split waffle batter into four bowls, and let each of us choose our color. I generally went with blue — even though red is my favorite — because it just looks so unique and a little bit scary… just what you need, I suppose, on a day that may or may not be Armageddon.

Oh. And because the Country Boy asked me to.

Blue Rice Pudding (serves 2)

Note: Leave out the food coloring for normal rice pudding.

1 Tbsp. butter
2 Tbsp. sugar
1/4 cup uncooked rice
a few drops of vanilla
a hefty pinch of salt
2 cups of milk
a few drops of blue food coloring
crème fraiche, for serving

Heat the butter and sugar together over low heat in a saucepan. Add the rice and stir until it becomes translucent, about 2 minutes. Add the vanilla and salt, then add about half a cup of the milk and stir to combine. Let the rice simmer over low heat, adding milk and stirring whenever it becomes dry, about every 5 minutes. When all of the milk has been added and the rice is no longer crunchy, stir in the food coloring. Top with crème fraiche, which is entirely unnecessary but has the added bonus of, in no particular order:

1. Making you feel fancy.
2. Making it easier to eat hot rice pudding by bringing down the temperature a bit.
3. Looking really cool against the blue pudding.