Have you ever noticed that some people are potato people and some people are rice people? My dad for example, is a potato person. He’s happiest with a side of simple boiled potatoes as his starch, for practically any meal. He can eat a plate full of them, while I will have just a quarter of one small Yukon gold. I am a rice person. Perhaps it’s the residual of scraping by on steamed broccoli and brown rice for so many years before discovering the twin joys of bacon and butter. Or perhaps it comes from living in Japan where rice is so important the word for it (gohan) is the same as the word for food. In any case, I love rice every which way. This is a nutty, earthy rice pilaf, a riff off of my mother’s basic pilaf, but with mushrooms, toasted pine nuts, some butter, and a green. We were originally considering this as a stuffing for a poultry dish, but decided to serve it as a side instead (great with chicken). Do you have a favorite rice pilaf or pilaf-ish rice stuffing that could double as a side? I would love to hear about it. Thanks in advance. Yours truly, the Rice-Obsessed-One.

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