New recipe!  Rice Cooker Polenta

Dear Grandma, 

There have been several innovations in cooking since you passed away in 2016. I know for a fact you would have loved the Instant Pot and the air fryer. They would have been a perfect replacement for the stove they removed from your nursing home after you caught your oven mitt on fire. 

If you’d lived a few years longer, I would have helped you understand that all of your food and stomach sensitivities probably meant you were allergic to gluten and dairy.  Or maybe it was another sign that you were really a Virgo (Aug 22), and not a Leo like we always thought. 

I’m very glad you were alive to see the glory of Trader Joe’s.  You knew how to be creative with what they had, employing every. shortcut. possible. We never did convince my Mom to become a TJ’s fan. She wasn’t as adventurous with food (except desserts), and I can still hear her complaining about the parking and rotten produce. 

Anywho… Leo or not, we shared the love for meal prep and kitchen shortcuts, and here I am writing to tell you, ten years after your death, that I COOK POLENTA IN MY RICE COOKER ALL THE TIME.  Remember those hours we spent in the kitchen stirring a vat of polenta for your polenta parties? Not happening today. 

That said, I’m grateful I learned how to listen for the polenta sputtering, manage the consistency with liquid, and know when it’s done.  Two stirs are all it takes to make rice cooker polenta that would no doubt make you proud. Unless my Mom gave you that hack. You would have found something wrong with it immediately.

These are the shortcuts we learn when we still have to nourish ourselves and family in a dual-income household. 

Love always, 

Tracy (with a y)

(For 37 years of my life, you spelled it Tracey!)

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