Hinnish Rice

I think life is a Hinnish rice.

Let me explain. A couple of years back, my nephew came to visit us while we were located at Cluj-Napoca. As a good hostess, I wanted to prepare some food for my guests (my parents, my sister and nephew). Thus, I made some rice like the one I once ate in a Uzbek restaurant and which turned my opinion around about the fact that rice cannot be tasty.

I combined all ingredients as I should, I used the same type of rice. It was good, but not wow! (quoting here the people who work in corporations and use too much this term). Also, my parents had eaten a lot of rice before the visit so they could not have been very excited anyway. And the nephew … well, I do not remember what the nephew said about the rice. But I do remember what he called it while I was preparing it: Hey, Eme, what are you cooking there, Hinnish rice?

We laughed a lot about this invented word, and I cherish that memory. But I have been discovering, ever since, that life is a Hinnish rice. One tries and makes a lot of efforts, takes risks, and does everything by the book and one gets a Hinnish rice. And one cannot even blame oneself. One has tried everything, but the result is far from being perfect.

It’s hard for one not to give into despair. Humans tend to do that when the results are not equal to their efforts. But when one finds oneself in a situation when one feels defeated, one must remember that, in life, we all sometimes receive Hinnish rice. And we eat it. ... Because that's life. And the cooking.