Living with Rice

Look carefully and you can see the rice flowers

The rice fields are turning yellow as they bloom

I am learning a lot about rice!  Mostly that it is required at all three meals of the day.  Even my very American Thai husband is now looking inquiringly at the breakfast table if there is not a pot of rice in evidence !!  As the Inuit have so many words for the different types of snow ..the Thai have many words for all the different types and forms of rice.  Typical of this area and Isaan, the northeast, is sticky rice or Kaao-niiao ( pronounced - I think- Cow Neow ).  When cooked it is dry and sticky and  the rice picked up from the serving bowl in your fingers and rolled into a golf ball sized lump and then dipped into the accompanying dish or sauce.
 Thailand..which is still one of the main suppliers of rice for the world, grows several types of rice and some mature in three months, some in six months and in some areas for some types of rice, there is only one planting a year.  The fields around us are planted with sticky rice, and is is a once a year crop that will be harvested in December.   Almost over night the fields are changing from a deep, rich dark green to a yellow green as the rice begins to flower.  It happened to field directly behind us last night and we can now see rice flowers.