Orzo Lunch for those who Labor

Spend the briefest amount of time amongst wheelchair users and listen as the conversation rapidly turns toward bathroom use.  How, when, and where are all lively topics when you cannot walk into a restroom and use the facilities as architecturally intended.

A close second to bathroom use is personal cleanliness and the achievement thereof.

We have a ceiling lift in John’s bathroom.  This contraption literally hoists his rear in sling, moving him a on track from the toilet to the shower and back. (Sharp-eyed viewers of Edie And Thea: A Very Long Engagement will notice one in Thea’s bedroom.)

As you might imagine, these systems are not cheap.  Ours is refurbished, but still cost close to $5000.  While it makes bathroom use safer and easier, John still needs my assistance showering, toweling dry, and dressing.  By the time he’s “humanized”–his term for being fully dressed and in his wheelchair, essentially independent–I’m hungry enough to eat the towels.

Towels not being all that tasty, I usually throw lunch together using leftovers. Maybe a sandwich.  But yesterday, while John showered, I took rooted out some orzo from the drawer of too-many-pastas.  A tub of burrata needed using up.

Orzo cooks quickly, taking about eight minutes in boiling water.  Holding the lid over the pot, I poured off most the cooking water, then set the pot back on the stove.  The near-liquid burrata was stirred in, making a soupy pasta porridge.  I heard the shower turn off, plunked the lid on, and helped John dress.

Drying off and dressing took about twenty minutes (pressure stocking days take even longer). During that time, the pasta absorbed the remaining water.  The burrata turned to goo.  The result was so good I took its picture, scribbled down what I did, and a recipe was born (surely somebody somewhere has done this better.).

Caveat Eater: this dish has nothing whatsoever to do with traditional Italian pasta preparation.  It professes no relationship whatsoever that venerable cuisine, which insists on al dente pasta quickly served on very hot plates.  Italians would in fact consider this dish heretical or worse, for it asks you to overcook the orzo AND allow it to sit in a puddle of half-drained pasta water while you get your spouse dressed. The result, as photographs indicate, is what the English call stodgy.  But sometimes stodge is just the thing.