Cabbage And Rice
*serves 4

I grew up with an odd lunch box. No bologna sandwiches for me, instead, a thermos filled with lentil soup or cabbage and rice. Bottomless bowls of cabbage and rice were served in our house, weekly, and my mother snagged that meal from my grandma. The showstopper in her cabbage and rice were the delicious bits of bacon.

Beans and rice are peasant food, I’m glad that I grew up eating like a peasant because eating poor never tasted so rich. American kids rarely grow up with a fondness for lentils and cabbage, but I did. Sure, I was chubby and was made fun of, relentlessly, because of my stinky lunch box – but the truth remains that I wouldn’t change a thing. I wouldn’t change the food, being chubby or turning into the butt of a stinky lunch joke. Learning to eat this way, learning to cook this way — it gave me more than I could ever imagine, a fondness for food, flavors, a love for tradition and my family.

My brother Louie and I went to the same elementary school, and we had the same lunch period, but he refused to be associated with my smelly lunches. Often times I would walk over to his lunch table and ask him open my thermos, because it was too tight for me to unscrew, but he would look past me like he didn’t know me. And, while my lunches consisted of thermos’ of hot goodness, he was getting cold cuts.

To this day, Louie could be described as ham and cheese on white bread – where as I would be a puttanesca (with a lot of red pepper, of course). God bless Louie’s friend Peter, who would open my thermos when I could not. I was an overweight child, and my lunch smelled so badly that my own family ignored me. Who cares, right? I had the most advanced palette in all of P.S. 114. Not many 10 year olds can say, “Ma –I’m really picking up the flavor of the bacon and pepper in that. Where’s that heat coming from, I’m getting a hint of cayenne?” Ok, I’m over exaggerating – but I wasn’t too far off. I watched both my grandmother and my mother with sharp eyes and a watering mouth. I snuck bread into the pot and dipped before any meal was done. I was the family’s very own professional salt meter and certified chubby taste tester.

To this day, Louie will not eat a bowl of lentils or cabbage and rice. Bacon, on the other hand, it might be his love language. Though his palette has grown into a passion for sumptuous steaks, salmon, bodacious burgers, he still dances with best friends Doritos and Haagen Dazs. He will not eat certain holiday meals and still will not touch cabbage and rice.

I encourage anyone reading this to give yourself or your child the gift of a stinky lunch because, well, teasing builds character and trying new foods keeps everyone curious.

Cabbage And Rice
*serves 4

Ingredients
½ pound of bacon
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1 cup chopped onion
2 garlic cloves (minced)
4 cups shredded cabbage
1 cup chicken broth/stock
1 teaspoon crushed red pepper
3 cups cooked rice
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
Parmigiano Reggiano cheese for grating

Instructions
—In a large skillet, over medium-low heat, render bacon
—Remove bacon from skillet, let drain, crumble, and put aside
—Add crushed red pepper, onion and garlic and cook until translucent
—Add cabbage and stir into onion mixture
—Add chicken broth, cover and simmer for 5 minutes
—Stir in rice, bacon and red pepper – and cover
—Let cabbage and rice simmer for 5-7 minutes (until cabbage is tender)
—Grate a honk of parmigiano over top and serve

Cabbage & Rice