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The rice cooker convert

By on November 5, 2015

I looked at it.

“So, what do you think?” my husband asked.  (To be honest, when he had called earlier and told me he was bringing home a “surprise,” I wasn’t really thinking cookware. I was thinking more along the lines of jewelry.)

“Well,” I said as I looked over the new rice cooker. “For starters, it is definitely too heavy for me to wear on my finger.”

So, here we go: Another new journey in Japan. Over the years, I have tried arranging flowers, making pottery, folding furoshikis, learning a new language, eating with chopsticks and singing karaoke. I tried new trains, new noodles and new combini snacks. And now, we are trying a new gadget. 

I looked at the buttons on the panel.

“So, what do you think?” my husband asked as he also studied the panel.

“The bad news: No English manual,” I said. “The good news: This cute rice cooker looks a lot like R2D2 from Star Wars.”

“Well,” my husband said. “We might not be able to figure out how to cook rice. But it looks like we can get a holographic message from Princess Leia.”

“The pressure’s on, R2,” I said to the cooker. “You won’t fail us, will you?” I am pretty sure it beeped back at me to please find Obi-Wan Kenobi. 

I looked at it.

Then, I added some rice. I added some water.

I pressed the one English button.

“Mom,” my son asked me with surprise. “What are you doing?”

“I’m making rice,” I said confidently.

“No, Mom,” he said. “According to this button, you are making fuzzy rice.”

I looked at the button again. He was right. It did say “fuzzy.” Fuzzy rice? Fuzzy rice? I know fluffy. I know mushy. I know burnt. I know minute. I know long-grain, short-grain, brown, and jasmine. I really know soggy. But I don’t know anything about fuzzy. I’m a bit fuzzy on fuzzy.

Twenty minutes later, I peeked at it.

“It is perfectly-cooked,” my husband said.

“That was easy,” I said.

That’s it.

Move over, microwave. Put a lid on it, stove top pot. The rice cooker is now the center of attention. And I admit it: After being a rice-cooker skeptic at first, I’m now on an automatic, no-stick, one-step kick.

So, sorry, princess, you are on your own to fight the Empire. It’s fuzzy cookin’ time.

 

Did you have a good laugh?  Read more of Karen’s hilarious adventure stories in Japan in a book called “Getting Genki in Japan”

About Karen Pond

Karen Pond is mother to 3 boys and author of Getting Genki In Japan: The Adventures and Misadventures of an American Family in Tokyo