A Sticky Situation

The scent of coconuts filled the room like flowers in a garden. Titi made me some Indonesian black sticky rice and coconut milk. I’d just spent a grueling and frustrating (though educational) day wandering the streets of West London and getting hopelessly lost (yes, that damn touristy thing was unavoidable), so coming back to the kitchen with my groceries and seeing her smiling face handing me a bowl of something I’d never had before was worth all the physical toil. I liked that it wasn’t at all sweet. She showed me a cylindrical cube of palm sugar, which she drops in the whole pot of rice. She soaks the rice overnight and then cooks it up with the sugar, then serves it with warmed coconut cream and a pinch of salt poured on top. Delicious! The rice was nice and soft, but had a crunchy and chewy texture, and the cream on top was a great counterbalance to any sweetness the sugar might have imparted. In fact, it tasted more salty than sweet. It’s very much like a porridge and resembles Chinese red bean paste. I’m sure I’ll have a lot to say about porridge soon. Also, pasties. That’s something I want to learn more about. They’re like the British take on empanadas. I saw a great place today, called Pie in a Box or something like that. I imagine it’s different kinds of pot pies. I’ve noticed there’s a lot of a lot of things here. I’m still not eating sugar, but I’ve got to check out the pound cake place. 20 varieties. I just like to be able to choose.