It started, as most things do, with an idea. This one seemed like a good one. It was a fairly simple idea, but somehow no one had ever thought of it. I read somewhere that every person has three "million dollar ideas" in their lifetime, but most are never realized. The more I thought about it, the more it seemed like this was one of those ideas.

Rice.

No, not that institute of higher learning in Houston. The little white stuff... grown in paddies, sold in big boxes by Uncle Ben. I was sitting at the Hibachi Steak House in Norwood, watching the chef fry up some rice, and I realized something. Rice pretty much takes on the taste of whatever you cook it with. That's just the nature of rice. You can buy all kinds of pre-flavored rice at the supermarket. There's Herb + Butter Rice and Toasted Almond Pilaf Rice and Bombay Naturally Aromatic Basmati Rice.

Boring.

I thought to myself... I could add much cooler stuff to my rice, and once I had the right formula down, I could knock Rice-A-Roni right out of the box, because not only would my rice taste good, it would come in exciting flavors like Rockcrusher Red Rice and Totally Xtreme Pilaf. While they were using trolley cars and the Golden Gate Bridge to sell their rice, I'd have Wolverine and Neo on my rice boxes and Tony Hawk in my rice commercials skateboarding to a rice jingle by Evanescence. Eminem would rap about my rice, somehow make it offensive to the general populace, and sales would skyrocket. My rice would be used as evidence on a special can't-miss two-hour episode of CSI.

But first I needed to actually make the rice. Luckily I had a giant box of Minute Rice in the cupboard. Minute Rice, despite taking more than a minute to make, was actually a good starting point. Of course, once my rice business took off, I'd have to make a deal with a rice grower instead of using store-bought rice, but look, I was just starting out, so Minute Rice was fine.

Next I needed some secret ingredients, so I inventoried the fridge: ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, pesto, butter, salsa, blackberry jam, and a bottle of hot sauce labeled "Ass In The Tub". All potential ingredients, but nothing that really jumped out as the perfect additive to my plain white rice. I thought some more.

Maybe it wasn't the actual ingredients that were added after the fact. Maybe the key was to boil the rice in something other than water. It goes against everything that Minute Rice stands for, I know, but that's how progress is made. Instead of adding that half cup of rice to that half cup of water, what if it was added to a half cup of cranberry juice, or coffee, or vodka? Unfortunately I had none of those lying around, so I settled on Caffeine Free Coca Cola.

Yes, Danielle, I realized that Coke doesn't taste like anything, but all the kids like it, and I had to get rid of the last can anyway. Naturally the finished product would be the caffeinated kind... they make caffeinated soap, so why not caffeinated rice? This... was a good idea.

I measured out half a cup of Coke, poured it into the pot and started boiling it. It didn't take long before it ripped to a boil, although it was probably just the carbonation being forced out. I stirred the rice in, turned the heat off, and put the cover on. Five minutes to paydirt.

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If at any point while reading this, you said to yourself, "What a stupid idea"... well, you were one step ahead of me. I'm not entirely sure I can describe to you how bad Coca Cola Rice tastes. It's horrible. Two great tastes that go great together? No. Sorry. Wrong answer. It felt like I was eating a warm Coke-soaked napkin... with a slightly metallic taste, which I can only assume was some metal stripped off the pot by the boiling Coke.

How had my idea gone horribly wrong? I am still unsure, but perhaps it has something to do with my inability to cook. Still, it was only rice... and Coke. How could it fail so catastrophically? Should I have used apple juice instead? Gatorade? I don't know.

I washed off the pot and the plate and the spoon, dumped the offending foodstuff in the garbage, and chalked this one up to trial and error. It took Heinz fifty-seven tries before he got ketchup right. One day my rice empire will flourish...

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