The rice came out of the bag by the handful. I do not own a scale and the cup that came with the cooker went missing years ago, so a handful it is, one loose fist per person, dropped into the pot with a dry hiss and a few grains skittering off the rim onto the counter.
Then the washing, which is its own thing. Cold water in, swirl with the flat of the hand, the water going cloudy white, pour it off, again, until it runs closer to clear. The grains squeak faintly against each other when they are clean. Cold on the fingers, and one nail found a small stone, or a grain harder than the rest, I could not tell which and did not stop to look.
The water is the part people do not believe. You level the rice with your hand, flat, and set a fingertip on top of it, and pour water until it reaches the first knuckle. Not a measurement anyone wrote down. The depth of one finger-joint above the rice, whatever the pot, however much rice. It scales itself.
Too little water and the bottom scorches, a brown crust welding itself to the pot that you soak overnight and still scrape at. Too much and it turns to paste, the grains blown open and sticking in a gray mass. The knuckle splits the difference and has for longer than I have been alive.
I set my finger in. Water to the knuckle, a hair over. Lid on.
The steam would do the rest, and there was nothing to watch now, just a covered pot and the sound it would start to make.
A wet grain had stuck to the side of my finger. I flicked it toward the sink and missed.