I was listening to a comedy sketch one morning and the speaker was making fun of people who refill their mega-sized water jugs at the local grocery. Mimicking them, he proudly and staunchly said, ”Look at me I’m sophisticated. I drink purer water than everyone else.” My family may get grocery water every week but we don’t flaunt it around like that. We just want to drink something clean and tasteless.

A couple of weeks ago, I filled our three 5-gallon water jugs as usual. But this time, in this hot summer heat, it was just unbearable for me! It didn’t help that I was roasting under the mid-afternoon sun. Even though my kids were there to help me, it was still bad. I felt like a frustrated Lynette!

Later on, I thought about those special faucets at medical facilities. You see them in pharmacies, hospitals, clinics, doctor’s offices, etc. Above the sink, there is a faucet with regular tap water for washing hands and what not. However, on the side, there is sometimes a smaller faucet with lower-pressured purified water. It suddenly occurred to me that there was nothing in the way of having the same installation on my very own kitchen sink!

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My sister once told me a joke about why we Asians have such squinted eyes: During dinnertime as kids, we would disdainfully say, “Rice again!?” while plopping our eyes on our heads in disgust. This, in turn, would stretch out our eyes over the years until they were long and thin.

It really is half-true … the rice everyday part. Generation upon generation of Asians ate rice as staple food. Because of this, we are connoisseurs on the subject of cooking rice. It runs in our blood. If you need to know anything about rice – how to make a perfect batch, what equipment you need, how to save a bad batch, etc – ask an Asian.

Sad Reality

When I lived in boarding school, I was appalled at how they cooked rice. It was incredulous! Wet rice? Hard rice? Minute rice? Disgusting! Once, during the school year, I cooked for a couple of my friends and someone said, “I never knew rice could be this fluffy!” How painfully sad! My heart went out to these people! From then on, I decided to publicize the secrets of rice. How does one make perfect, fluffy white rice?

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Taking a break from our Latin American tour of beans and rice, tamales, and menudo, we are visiting the other side of the world. Part of being a perfect housewife is familiarizing yourself with a variety of World cuisines.

One thing I notice about popular TV shows is that the parent network tries to mold the cast into a more politically correct group of actors. They compel the writers to add minorities in the script so that they can appease affirmative action activists or simply just increase their Nielson Ratings Demographic. Take for instance the Applewhites. Mark Cherry wanted to portray this family as Caucasians but the producers did not agree. They wanted to add some “ethnicity.” Practically, every major ethnic group has been portrayed on Desperate Housewives. You have the Hispanic Solis’ and the African American Applewhites. But I ask you. Where are the Asians!? They can live in nice houses too!

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