Grandma’s Apples and Rice

I have been trying to sit with the feeling this week, the way Dr. Langley suggested—not cooking through it, just sitting with it, letting the grief be what it is without a pot on the stove as an intermediary. This is harder than it sounds. My hands want to move. My hands want to be doing. My hands are not accustomed to being still when the grief is active, because still hands and active grief is the combination that produced the four months of 2018 when I couldn't cook and the house smelled like nothing. I am afraid of still hands. I am working on this fear. I am sitting with it. The sitting is the work.

What I have found, in the sitting: the grief for Bernice is different from the grief for Marcus. Not more or less, not larger or smaller—different in quality, in texture, in what it asks of me. Marcus's grief is a wound. It is acute and specific and it comes at me from the side sometimes when I think I've gotten out of range. Bernice's grief is an absence of foundation—a loss of the ground I stood on, of the woman who was the first and most important person in my life for fifty years, who taught me everything that is true about me, who is in my hands and my kitchen and every dish I have ever made. Marcus was the future. Bernice was the ground. Both gone. Two different kinds of gone.

On Saturday I made a simple pound cake. No occasion, no dedication, just a pound cake—the dense golden buttery kind that comes out of the pan looking like something your grandmother made, which is, in this case, both accurate and accurate. I ate it with Calvin at the kitchen table with good coffee. I said nothing. He said nothing. The cake was there. We were there. Sometimes that's the sitting: a pound cake and a man who loves you and the kitchen that holds you both. Sometimes the sitting and the cooking are the same thing. Dr. Langley will hear about this next week.

The pound cake on Saturday reminded me that Bernice lives in my hands whether I summon her or not — she is already there, already in the butter and the weight of the pan and the way I know without measuring when the batter looks right. This recipe for Grandma’s Apples and Rice is the one I reach for when I want that same feeling: something dense and sweet and honest, something that tastes like a kitchen that has held people a long time. It is not complicated. It does not need to be. It is the kind of dish that sits quietly beside you, the way Calvin did, and asks nothing except that you be present for it.

Prep Time: 10 min | Cook Time: 35 min | Total Time: 45 min | Servings: 6

Ingredients

1 cup long-grain white rice
2 cups whole milk
1 cup water
3 medium apples, peeled, cored, and diced (about 3 cups)
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, divided
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup heavy cream or half-and-half, for finishing

Instructions

Cook the rice. Combine rice, milk, water, granulated sugar, salt, and 1 tablespoon of butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Stir to combine and bring to a gentle simmer. Reduce heat to low, cover, and cook for 18–20 minutes, stirring occasionally, until rice is tender and most of the liquid is absorbed.
Prepare the apples. While the rice cooks, melt remaining 2 tablespoons butter in a skillet over medium heat. Add diced apples, brown sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Cook, stirring occasionally, for 8–10 minutes until apples are soft and caramelized and the sugar has formed a light glaze.
Combine. Stir vanilla extract into the cooked rice, then fold in the caramelized apples along with any pan juices. Pour in heavy cream and stir gently to bring the mixture together into a loose, creamy consistency.
Rest and serve. Remove from heat and let sit, covered, for 5 minutes. The rice will continue to absorb the cream and the flavors will settle. Serve warm in bowls, plain or with an extra pinch of cinnamon on top.

Nutrition (per serving)

Grandma’s Apples and Rice — Something Your Grandmother Made