There is always a rice cooker on in my kitchen. Jasmine rice, always ready, always there. That has never changed from the first kitchen to the last. My grandmother packed sticky rice in banana leaf for the long train ride from Kamphaeng Phet to Korat, still warm from the morning she made it, tasting like we were already home before we arrived. My mother made mango sticky rice for the altar before she ever made it for the table, because in our family you give first and then you eat. That was the lesson the altar taught me before I had words for it. Every morning when the grandchildren come the first thing they want is eggs and rice, not because I told them to want it, but because it is warm and it is the same every time and the sameness is the safety. These are the rice dishes. From the farm in Kamphaeng Phet to a Florida kitchen, carried forward the way everything important travels in this family, quietly and completely, without ever needing to be explained.
