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Risotto is the pandemic meal your mental health needs right now.
Who would have thought it would take a global health emergency and economic catastrophe to make me appreciate standing in the front of the stove for 20–30 minutes, doing nothing else but tending to a pan of rice.
Risotto is a dish that has, unfairly if you ask me, earned a reputation for being fussy and difficult. There are steps, more than a few. They must be done in the correct order, at the correct time. You must never walk away from the stove, even for a minute, lest your risotto scorch.
Yet here I am, standing over the stove, stirring and tasting and adding liquid and stirring and tasting some more. No time for my phone. No time to watch TV. No time to go tend to other dishes for tonight’s dinner. The risotto demands, and deserves, my full attention.
But I can let my mind wander a bit as I stir. With each pass of the wooden spoon around the pan I can think about how things were. Or how they are now. Or maybe, how they might be. One day.
“The new normal.” Whatever the hell that even really means.
It starts with the sofritto. The smell and sizzle of garlic and onions, maybe some carrot, jolts me into being as it hits the pan. This is happening. This is real. It’s sound and aroma and chemistry, it’s life. I am aware. I am present.
