unexpected blessings and thanks to Maya Angelou

So Thursday night my son, who is seventeen, says, "oh yeah, i forgot. we have to make spanish rice tonight."

At 6 pm. I've been getting up at 5 am to take other son to water polo practice so by 6 o'clock at NIGHT, I am done. Wiped out, finished, barely coherent. Seriously. I'm so not a morning person that when I'm forced to get up every day like that, by the end of the day I'm in a borderline vegetative state. And by the end of the week, forget it.

Thirty bite sized servings for, no not Spanish class, but English class. Why? Because Maya Angelou apparently is partial to Spanish rice. And for the poetry presentation, his group is spotlighting Maya Angelou.

So he accesses http://www.allrecipes.com/ and searches for Spanish rice. We head to the store for the two ingredients we don't have in our pantry, one of them being, yes, you guessed, the rice.

I don't consider cooking to be helping with homework. I won't write my kid's papers, I won't type my kid's papers, I won't do their math or their French homework, or color their graphs or science lab covers, but I absolutely will help them cook.

Fortunately my sons are in culinary class so he starts the boring stuff (chopping--but don't tell him that) while I get the bacon simmering. We chatted about his day, his classes, cooking, and Maya Angelou while the spicy aromas began to fill our kitchen and what could have been a completely frustrating and annoying evening turned into a lovely interaction with my son. And the rice was absolutely fantastic. We're planning on making the recipe again, it was sooo good.

So thank you, Maya Angelou!

Lisa

ps. I've included the link for the rice recipe. We used smoked applewood bacon and our chile powder is a wonderful smoked powder from New Mexico chiles.
www.allrecipes.com/Recipe/Spanish-Rice-Original/Detail.aspx