DIARY OF MOMENTS ❖ required rest
a guide to chicken congee
I’m pretty awful at being taken care of. I messaged A to tell him I was sick and couldn’t go out, knowing on some level he’d ask “Do you need me to bring you anything?”, and of course he did (sorry! I should just ask) and he brought me the ingredients for chicken congee. And before when I was sick (a different one) on holiday last week, B drove to the grocery store, asked the hotel for oil, and cooked me bhurji in the shape of a heart, then I complained that he washed the dishes with local tap water instead of filtered water. How unbearable am I! Sometimes the greatest form of love is not being smacked upside the head when you 100% deserve it. He is the most patient person in the world, or my world, anyway.
I’ve had a string of petty injuries and illnesses since December and in some way I feel satisfied that it’s culminating in an actual flu. There’s a poetic catharsis to that - the unambiguous physicality of breaking into a fever. But it’s a little weird, too. I ‘completed’ therapy a while ago but my therapist still exists as a little homunculus in my head, so my reflex is to ask “What’s really going on here? Am I burnt out or something?”, which I don’t really feel is true. I’ve been working a lot, doing a lot, but I don’t feel burnt out. It’s true my sleep and exercise could be better. Most likely I just got the flu from some bozo on the plane.
People talk about holidays making you feel more present but sickness drags you back into the present in its own way. I don’t mean that in an annoying overly optimistic way. I mean it like, when I’m sweating my ass off, and can hardly breathe with no hope of getting any predictable sleep, all I can do is surrender to whatever my body will allow me to do in that moment. Watch Seinfeld, complain to my boyfriend, make honey lemon ginger tea seven times a day. I had a fantasy that I could spend all day bedridden reading Leslie Jamison essays, but I forgot that my brain is a part of my body, also.
I’ve always been partial to the Asian way of dealing with sickness, which is to sweat your ass out in total surrender. Nothing feels more right than standing over my instant pot congee, swirling it like a cauldron of potions. R has always hailed the life-changing benefits of turmeric and black pepper together, which at this point has become such a meme that we - as in anyone who has ever met him and heard this same spiel - laugh it off, but his insistence is so effective that I’m buoyed by an opportunity to add turmeric and black pepper to soups, smoothies, and something in my mythic brain feels there is something inherently good and life-affirming about staring into that pot of liquid gold.
I’ve always hated conditions which stop me from thinking and functioning like usual. I’ve realised that’s probably the intended purpose of these conditions. In tropical weather I can’t grasp much of my own neurosis because my consciousness is slippery with sweat. When I’m sick and congested I can’t write intense think-pieces because honestly, who gives a shit at this point. I’m sick. Leave me in peace from your ideas.
But it’s not a bad prompt to go forward a bit more simply. I’m definitely someone who needs to be hit on the head routinely with a, “Yo, it ain’t that deep, man”. We can have a bias towards what is more complex, rich, sophisticated as superior. But chicken congee is perfect, and it requires no complexity at all.
Here’s what you do for chicken congee: Wash 1 cup of Jasmine rice in an instant pot or rice cooker. Add 9 cups of water (you can makeup some of the water with chicken broth to your taste, but I prefer clean; shaoxing wine or sherry wine can also add some umami). Add chicken - I like to use thigh or drumsticks. Add 1-2 tsp ginger. If you like, put some turmeric and black pepper! Then I cook it on high pressure in my instant pot for 30 mins, then saute with salt (or fish sauce/patis is even better if on hand) until I’m happy with the consistency. For garnish, you can never go wrong with green onion. But basically you can make the whole thing with rice, chicken, and ginger and it’s delicious.
It is generally known as a Chinese dish but I actually grew up knowing it as a Filipino (via Spain) dish called arroz caldo. B informed me congee is actually an original Tamil name! But it’s not that clear to me why. And in Cantonese it’s called juk. Which makes for punny juks.
Even thinking of doing a biryani gives me a headache. Right now I appreciate how much energy normal life entails. I appreciate how much little things require quite a lot.
Stay healthy,
Marlene
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Now I rly want chicken congee
Yo it ain't that deep man!