(and my obsession with seaweed snacks!)
it’s nerdy but true. in a way, this is my version of junk food. i try to eat brown or unrefined grains most of the time, and i enjoy them! there are great whole grain pastas out there (but not all are created equal) and despite growing up on white rice, i made the switch to brown rice years ago. brown rice is great. but sometimes the smell, texture and comfort of white jasmine rice…there’s really nothing like it. so when i indulge in it, i like to let it stand on it’s own.
i was at a friend’s house one day and she was snacking on paper-thin, snack-size sheets of seaweed. for those of you who frequent chinese or korean grocery stores, these are not the really tiny sheets in plastic, usually made with kids in mind. these sheets are perfectly seasoned with oil and salt and kept ultra-fresh in individual-serving foil packages. while i know seaweed is good for you, the process that this variety goes through, and the added salt and oil don’t make it the healthiest option. but they are so tasty, they border on addictive. i defy you to eat only one package!
they are great on their own and i was in love at first crunch. but i’d tasted nothing yet. i was still licking my lips from maybe the fourth sheet when my friend served up some rice fresh from the rice cooker. “try this…!” she said, and wrapped a piece of crisp seaweed around a small hot mound of rice and popped it in her mouth. good lord. what a perfectly simple, simply perfect mouthful. the rice is a perfect foil for the salty seaweed and the seaweed’s texture changes to slightly chewy when it hits the hot rice. she was right…try this!