How to Section a Grapefruit

First acquire a good grapefruit. Pink grapefruits are ideal. They should be round in shape, with a bright red flush and should have no indents or sores. You want a nice firm, round specimen.

With a good sharp knife, cut off the bottom of your grapefruit. This will give the grapefruit stability on your cutting board. Remember that the grapefruit is round and round things like to roll away.

Stand your grapefruit on the cutting board, cut-side down. Then run your knife down the sides, taking the peel as you go.

Why shouldn't you just remove the peel by hand you say? Well, cutting off the peel this way will also remove the fibrous tissue from the grapefruit sections. The whole point of this exercise is to get at the delicate fruit within without all that excess.

Once you finish going all the way around, cut off the remaining pieces of peel on the bottom of the grapefruit and any pieces you missed.

Now take a paring knife and cut into each section along the fibrous tissue wall that separates the sections. Run the knife along the inside of one side and the other and scoop out the flesh. This is tricky and will take lots of practice but it is well worth it.

Once you have gone all the way around, throw out the fibrous middle section. Now you have delicate and delicious sections of grapefruit. These work well in a nice fruit salad. I like to eat the sections as they are with a little sprinkle of Splenda or sugar. You can also use this same method for oranges. Enjoy!

How to Cook Rice ~ Raquelle-Style

This is the method of cooking rice that my mother passed down to me. I don't know how she developed it, or why it works, but it's by far the best way to cook rice. My mother uses extra oil in hers but I like to keep it light. If you decide to try this method, just do all the steps. Don't question them, do them. Good luck.

Start with 2 cups of long grain rice.

Wash the rice thoroughly by filling a bowl with the rice with water. Move the rice around with your fingers so that the water has access to the kernels. Drain the water. Repeat until the water you are draining is almost clear. You are removing a lot of the excess starch off the rice by doing this.

Now you have clean rice!

In the meantime, boil some water.

In your pot, add about a tablespoon of oil for every cup of rice. So in this case, add 2 tablespoons of oil to the pot. Heat the oil at medium heat until it starts to sizzle.

Stir in the rice so that it's coated with the hot oil. Cook for about 2 minutes. Coating the rice with oil will help prevent stickiness and cooking the rice in advance this way will help bring out the natural flavor of the rice.

For every 1 cup of rice, add 1-1/2 cups of water. In this case, add 3 cups of boiling water. Stir thoroughly.

Salt the pot well. Taste test the salted water until it's too your liking. Do this now because it will be difficult to season the rice later.

Cook rice at medium high heat, stirring occasionally.

Cook until the rice absorbs almost all of the water. Create a little well in the center of the rice and smooth the rice around the well evenly. When that well is almost dry of water, turn the heat down to low.

Cover the top of the pot with a large piece of aluminum foil. Don't ask why. Just do it. Then add the cover on top. Cook for 10 minutes.

At 10 minutes, turn over the rice. Don't just fluff it! Turn sections of it over. This way all the rice gets some time at the bottom of the pot, closest to the heat source.

Cover with the foil and pot cover and cook for 10 more minutes. Fluff the rice and serve. Enjoy!

Rice