I. Rice

My grandmother, normally a reluctant socializer, used to go head before feet, as we say in Iraq, whenever we were invited to dinner at our young, newly married neighbor’s house. ‘I like her rice,’ she used to say. ‘She still doesn’t know how to cook.’ Taking into consideration my grandmother’s remaining three or four teeth, perilously hanging on, it is understandable why our neighbor’s sticky and soft rice, which by common standards was a failure, appealed to her. Perfect rice is the measure of a good cook in Iraq, simply because it is prepared practically every day, and if a cook doesn’t know how to prepare this daily staple properly, then what does she know?