I’ve never baked Proust’s madeleine or even tried any of the recipes from Nora Ephron’s Heartburn. But one of the happy lessons that the Cappadoras learn early is to guard a great recipe – Grandma Rosie’s recipe for “gravy,” which is what Italians call pasta sauce, was passed down through generations with as much zeal as the secret recipe for Coca-Cola or Van Gogh’s ineffable way of creating the color yellow. In my family, a good recipe needs to be easy, inexpensive and evoke passionate reactions of joy. My children beg me not to forget the Sierra Secrets or the Tutu cookies at Christmas; my eldest took jars of my spaghetti “gravy” to college; my 13-year-old daughter has actually eaten so much of my mustard-and-ketchup meatloaf that she had to lie down for three hours. I believe I first found this recipe for rice pudding in a biography of General Ulysses S. Grant, but I adapted it myself so that I could make a huge pot of rice for stir-fry one night and have enough left over to make rice pudding and have it chilled for dessert or warm for a cold-weather breakfast the next day.

Next Day Rice Pudding 

Prep time: 30 minutes

2 cups cooked white rice (it can even be left over from Chinese takeout, but no soy sauce please!)
2 cups milk, skim or 2 percent
1 cup sugar (I use raw or Turbinado sugar)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup golden raisins
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg (optional)
1/4 cup slivered almonds (not even an option at my house!
No one wants them but it makes for a more “grown up” taste)

1. Cook the rice and milk together until they boil, stirring nearly constantly until the rice begins to thicken to a pudding-like consistency (this will take a good twenty minutes … so put on some music). Add the sugar and salt and keep cooking until the mixture falls heavily from a spoon (the consistency of very thick waffle batter.)
2. Just before removing from heat, add raisins and stir until they heat through.
3. Place pudding in a large serving dish or individual dessert cups and sprinkle with cinnamon, or cinnamon and nutmeg with a dusting (not at my house!) of slivered almonds. Serve warm or cold. General Grant reportedly liked his with a bit of maple syrup.

Yield: 4 servings