M2, J and I went to the Cambridge for dinner tonight. The choices for mains were roast pork, chili mac and spaghetti. Between us we sampled it all. M2 had the pork, J had the chili mac and I had a little rice, a little pork and “spaghetti”.
I was a little wary of the pasta as it looked very limp, thin and very, very white. That’s why I got the pork too. As we were about to tuck in, I mentioned to M2 that he had made a good choice as the pork was “always a safe bet, you can really overcook pork a lot before it becomes too dried out”. I would come to eat those words which turned out to be easier to do than eating the pork. While M2’s pieces were reported as “pretty good”, mine was dry and tough. Cleverly, the DFAC folks ensured the bread rolls, which kinda crumbled to dust when touched, made the pork seem relatively moist. I whined “Remember how I said it was really hard to make pork dry…well, they’ve done it”. J, always looking for the silver lining (i.e. full of shit), offered, “It’s nice to see they’re willing to put in the extra effort like that”.
Ok, back to the “spaghetti”. The sauce, like the noodles, was pretty anemic but, unlike the noodles, it, at least,had some flavour. The pasta just sort of melted into mush in my mouth and was utterly tasteless. The consensus at the table was that it was rice pasta. What the fuck? The sign said spaghetti. Spaghetti is made with wheat. I already had rice on my plate when the guy put this other rice shit with it. Couldn’t he have said “Yo, dude, ya sure you want rice spaghetti with that rice? That’s a lot of rice”. As my whinging crescendoed, M2 got back from the dessert table and suggested I may want to try what looked like jello on a bed of rice. I demurred.
Instead I had the Queen Pudding. I’d had it once before and it was pretty crappy but I thought I’d give it another try just to be fair. Now, I must admit, I learned something tonight. I should trust experience. Queen Pudding is crap. It’s essentially a flavourless, puffy egg based cake. Think of a quiche without cheese or ham and which has had all of its goodness replaced with nastiness. I doused it in hot custard and it was tolerable. This is one more reason Canada ought to dump the monarchy.
Bottom Line
Jello on rice is sometimes the lesser of two evils.
“Of the various forms of government which have prevailed in the world, an hereditary monarchy seems to present the fairest scope for ridicule.”-Edward Gibbon
Just DFACS Ma'am 
As a lover of brown rice pasta, I have to say it’s more challenging to cook but the flavour is a reward. It’s slightly sweet and nutty-tasting and is far superior to wheat pasta and it has a nice golden/tan colour to it.
I think you had way overcooked white pasta. Gross!
I note you said brown rice pasta, not spaghetti. Spaghetti cannot be made with rice. I have spoken.
Hey Mark, I enjoy your blog. What you need is a huge bottle of Franks Hot Sauce, it helps almost every food out there. I know how much you love to eat 😀
They have the poor man’s Frank’s, Tabasco, at the DFAC and the Canadians abandoned several bottles of generic Louisiana Hot Sauce when they left. I just don’t want to lug it around to every meal.
ok im grossed out now… jello rice? ewe… just, ew
To be fair, it only looked like rice. It may have been tapioca but that is only marginally less offensive than rice.