The other day I happened to be in Quebec City. As I was wandering the streets of the old Quebec, I dropped in on one of the better known culinary specialty shops on rue Saint-Jean (more on that in another post).

I was hoping to find one or the other of one of my preferred varieties of rice for making Risottos, i.e. Vialone or Carnaroli. Amazingly, not only did they have both of these but they also had one I called “Baldo”. I found that quite intriguing as I had never actually seen it in any store before and so I bought some. Needless to say, I will have to let you know how my next Risotto based on this variety will turn out. Let’s just say, it’s another one of the Italian short grain varieties that will cook up in about 18 minutes without going mushy on you.
Well, that’s not actually accurate. You can make any variety of rice go mushy or creamy on you if you are of the restless type and have the need to keep stirring the bloody thing on a regular basis!

That said, did you know that there are some 100,000 plus varieties of rice in the world today?

And more on that later too 🙂