rice                   Without rice, even the cleverest housewife cannot cook.                               Chinese Proverb toasted-garlic rice with herbs and lime wild rice with mushrooms risotto oyster risotto risotto with basil, garlic and Parmesan cheese risotto with prawns and tomatoes risotto with salmon A diet that consists predominantly of rice leads to the use of opium, just as a diet that consists predominantly of potatoes leads to the use of liquor. Friedrich Nietzsche "Rice is a beautiful food. It is beautiful when it grows, precision rows of sparkling green stalks shooting up to reach the hot summer sun. It is beautiful when harvested, autumn gold sheaves piled on diked, patchwork paddies. It is beautiful when, once threshed, it enters granary bins like a (flood) of tiny seed-pearls. It is beautiful when cooked by a practiced hand, pure white and sweetly fragrant." Shizuo Tsuji