It’s Wednesday, good morning. The world feels extra heavy to me today. It’s only the middle of the week and I have lived a thousand lifetimes already since Monday.
Let’s talk about something smooth that goes down easy, shall we? Something comforting and sweet, like nursery food. Something like…rice pudding.
Actually, I am a big fan of rice pudding – especially with raisins and cinnamon, AND I like the skin that forms on top of a vat of this easy-to-digest delicacy when it’s left to sit in the fridge for a while. (Sorry, not sorry).
But, I have actually found that rice pudding – and all puddings, really – to be somewhat divisive, so maybe this post isn’t, in fact, all that I first envisioned?
But I’m already well into this post, and as good as committed. So, let’s start by answering a baseline question: What IS pudding, anyway?
Here in the U.S., a pudding is usually a milk-based dessert that is similar in consistency to egg-based custards, instant custards or a mousse. If it’s made commercially, it usually includes some sort of thickening agent like cornstarch and gelatin.
If you happen to be a Brit, or living in the U.K., “pudding” means something different. Generally speaking, it is a catch-all phrase for the sweet course (AKA dessert) that follows the main meal – especially among members of the upper class.
However, a pudding on the other side of the pond can also mean something sweet (sticky toffee pudding, for example) OR something savory (blood pudding, Yorkshire pudding, etc.). The American version of a pudding to the Brits is more akin to a custard than anything else.
Confused yet?
Rice pudding is usually made from rice, milk or cream, sugar and eggs, and is cooked (boiled or baked) until it’s thick and soft. It might have some vanilla and, as mentioned earlier, raisins and cinnamon. In other countries, there might also be nuts, dried fruits other than raisins, and some additional spices.
But it’s not really very fancy, and it’s not particularly healthy, though as desserts go, it’s not terrible for you, either.
According to the interwebs, rice pudding might have originated in China, which I guess isn’t really surprising, given the central role rice plays in that country’s diet, or maybe in India.
Early versions were perhaps not sweet, and maybe were made with broth and/or water and grains other than rice. This dish does by many names around the globe, including but not limited to: Kheer, payesh, phirini, payasam, gil-e-firdaus, muhalabia, arroz con leche, riz bi haleeb, milchreis
Rice pudding has also long been viewed as something soothing and potentially even medicinal in nature. It certainly is not hard on the digestive system, though if you have a cold or the flu, mucus-producing dairy is perhaps not the best choice.
Today, for some reason I am unable to discern, is National Rice Pudding Day. Even though I can’t figure out who established this day and/or why or when, I am here for it.
We are back in summery weather territory. There will be partly cloudy skies today with temperatures in the mid-80s.
In the headlines…
Declaring it good “not only for Arizona but for the planet,” President Joe Biden signed a national monument designation for the greater Grand Canyon, turning the decades-long visions of Native American tribes and environmentalists into reality.
Biden’s designation of a new national monument is expected to protect nearly 1 million acres of land and stop new mining and development. But with mining rights already grandfathered in, the existing Pinyon Plain Mine is an exception.
The designation protects the area from potential uranium mining. It also protects existing grazing permits and leases, existing mining claims and will support area hunting and fishing, officials said. It encompasses approximately 917,000 acres of public land.
The president has highlighted his climate actions as a way to spur domestic energy production and create blue-collar jobs, while nodding to environmental activists and tribal leaders.
The Biden administration plans to issue new restrictions on American investments in certain advanced industries in China – a move that supporters have described as necessary to protect national security but that will undoubtedly rankle Beijing.
Iowa Democrats know they aren’t getting primary clout. They’re just asking Biden for a visit or two.
The Supreme Court temporarily revived the Biden administration’s regulation of “ghost guns” — kits that can be bought online and assembled into untraceable homemade firearms.
Many House Republicans privately say it appears to be a foregone conclusion: Biden will face an impeachment inquiry in the fall and could be just the fourth US president ever charged with high crimes or misdemeanors.
As House Republicans seem increasingly likely to pursue an impeachment inquiry against Biden, one top Republican appears unenthused: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has called on Biden to “give us his bank statements” to prove he didn’t benefit from his family’s foreign business dealing as Republicans prepare to launch an impeachment inquiry as early as next month.
The fourth criminal case involving Donald Trump is likely to come to a head next week, with the district attorney in Atlanta expected to take the findings from her election interference investigation to a grand jury.
A lawyer allied with Trump first laid out a plot to use false slates of electors to subvert the 2020 election in a previously unknown internal campaign memo that prosecutors say is a crucial link in how the Trump team’s efforts evolved into a criminal conspiracy.
The former president, who has made his 2024 campaign principally about his own personal grievances, is attempting to convince supporters to see themselves in him.
Trump kept up his attacks on special counsel Jack Smith and vowed to continue talking about his criminal cases even as prosecutors sought a protective order to limit the evidence that the former president and his team could share.
Prosecutors in Smith’s office are pressing forward with their investigation into Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election, asking at least one witness – ex-NYPD Commissioner Bernard Kerik – about fund-raising efforts by Trump’s PAC.
Trump mocked Chris Christie, one of his rivals for the Republican presidential nomination, over his eating habits and his weight.
Christie, in turn, called Trump a “self-centered, self-possessed, self-consumed, angry old man” as the former New Jersey governor and the crowded field of 2024 Republican presidential hopefuls gear up for their first debate.
Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida is shaking up his presidential campaign — again. It’s the third time in less than a month.
The latest data from the New York state Department of Health, released Aug. 2, shows that COVID cases spiked by 55% since the prior week, with an average of 824 reported cases per day across the state.
A California-based designer of semiconductors has established research and design facilities at two spots in upstate New York — one in Monroe County and one in Dutchess County, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced.
New York’s Socialists in Office held a meeting at the end of July with other local Democratic Socialists of America members to discuss their successes – and failures – in the past legislative session.
Mayor Eric Adams and Hochul pledged they will finally get the job done in turning the Bronx’s Kingsbridge Armory into a bustling site for economic activity — after decades of failed attempts by city and state leaders to find a use for the long-abandoned building.
Virtually every detail of the project — other than the size of check from the city and state treasuries — has yet to be worked out.
Rep. Jamaal Bowman ruled out a 2025 run for mayor following weeks of speculation that he’d been considering a primary campaign against Adams.
Hochul said she is continuing to urge the federal government to give migrants Temporary Protected Status so they can fill numerous job openings across the state.
An indignant Adams warned that New York City is “on the eve of a fiscal cliff’’ as the projected multibillion-dollar cost of its migrant influx was set to soar thanks partly to asylum school kids.
Disastrous immigration policies are crushing New York City with over 10,000 migrants continuing to arrive monthly demanding shelter, meals and services, new statistics show.
Scores of migrants in Texas say they are eager for a chance to get to New York City — even though they know it’s “chaos” thanks to the flood of asylum-seekers before them.
Service providers and elected officials demanded the contractor charged with caring for migrants resettled in the Capital Region improve operations and that the state and federal government coordinate a response to ease the burden on local communities.
Monroe County Executive Adam Bello announced plans for a hotel in Rochester to start taking in migrants, an arrangement made with Adams’ office.
A migrant from Venezuela facing a charge of rape in Western New York has touched off a firestorm of criticism from Republicans, who have been critical of Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz’s response to the state’s migrant crisis.
Poloncarz condemned the reported rape and said that “any asylum seeker who shatters the sacred trust placed in them by violating the law…should be swiftly prosecuted and deported after they are punished for their crimes.”
The city Parks Department banned swimming on Rockaway Beach in Queens yesterday as they investigate a shark attack that landed a 65-year-old woman in the hospital with a gruesome leg wound.
Tatyana Koltunyuk, 65, was attacked off the shore near Beach 59th Street shortly before 6 p.m. Monday — losing a large chunk of her left leg, above the knee, to the shark, according to sources and a photo of her injury.
The quick-thinking Rockaway Beach lifeguards who raced into action to rescue a swimmer from a vicious shark attack “saved her” by fashioning a tourniquet with a buoy rope to stem the bleeding, their superior said.
Officials said there had been no reports of shark bites at Rockaway Beach “in recent memory” before Monday’s incident. Koltunyuk was in serious but stable condition.
In stark contrast to a recent federal monitor report on Rikers Island, a group of mostly right-leaning City Council members toured the city’s troubled jail complex and declared it “a complete turnaround” from when they last visited in 2021.
A Queens councilmember, Vickie Paladino, who is known for confronting rule-breaking renters in her district has spent years barring inspectors from entering her own Whitestone home amid dozens of complaints that she’s illegally renting to tenants.
The NYPD inspector accused of obstructing an investigation into former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s misuse of his security detail is expected to surrender in Manhattan Criminal Court today.
Former mayor Rudy Giuliani has put his luxury apartment on the Upper East Side up for sale amid mounting legal woes, it emerged yesterday – over two years after it was famously raided by the FBI.
Northwell Health fired back at rival NYU Langone Hospital in the medical behemoths’ legal battle over the use of the color purple.
A hole in a Manhattan sidewalk has grown large enough that New Yorkers can look down and see subway trains running underneath their feet, frightening photos taken yesterday morning show.
Oscar-winning actor Robert De Niro’s teenage grandson died of a deadly mix of fentanyl, cocaine and ketamine, the city’s medical examiner ruled.
The husband of a New York City oncologist who fatally shot her 4-month-old daughter before turning the gun on herself was absolutely not involved in the horrible tragedy despite rumors swirling on social media, a New York State Trooper insisted.
It appears the man charged with O’Shae Sibley’s murder is not Muslim. The suspect, Dmitry Popov, 17, is Christian, his lawyer said, altering at least one aspect of a killing that has drawn national attention.
The Guggenheim Museum has reached an agreement with its workers’ union after more than two years of bargaining and that nearly 150 curators, conservators and other employees connected with Local 2110 of the UAW had ratified their first contract.
The owner of a children’s bookshop on the Upper East Side had a German shepherd, Syko, who was known to attack other pets. His latest victim, Baby the toy poodle, died.
During a news conference and two public hearings at the Rensselaer Senior-Junior High School, residents, elected officials, school leaders and activists stood united in calling on the state not to renew the permits for the S.A. Dunn Landfill.
The first Capital Region location of the popular, high-end Ruth’s Chris Steak House chain will open in the Wolf Road corridor at the end of August, a company spokeswoman said.
Kayakers came to the rescue of three people on a boat that sank yesterday morning in Round Lake, Saratoga County sheriff’s deputies said.
The Rensselaer County Legislature last night approved moving a senior services center, and other offices, out of downtown Hoosick Falls to a site on Route 22 in the town of Hoosick.
Mikhaela Singleton is leaving WTEN. She’s headed to WROC in Rochester where she’ll work as a morning anchor.
A judge in Los Angeles sentenced the Canadian musician Tory Lanez to 10 years in prison for shooting the rapper Megan Thee Stallion during an argument in 2020, the culmination of a case that polarized the music world.
The largest jackpot in Mega Millions history, worth an estimated $1.58 billion, was secured in Florida last night.
The winning numbers were 13, 19, 20, 32, 33, and the gold Mega Ball of 14. The company did not identify the owner of the winning ticket.
