I come from a culture where rice is the basis of the three squares a day. And by rice, I mean the white, sticky stuff, not any of this fancy wild/brown/yellow and loose alternates. We'd gotten out of making rice at home because I grew to loathe cleaning the rice cooker pan afterwards. It always needed to soak because the rice had crusted and burnt to it. The lid would be covered in white, hard to scrub froth. The pain had not been worth it since I would just get my rice fix when we ate out. It's especially not worth it when an impatient toddler will not wait until I am done with the dishes and will physically try to push me away from the sink so I can play with her.
But we discovered that she's a fan of brown rice. We try to feed her healthier than I feed myself so I looked into what it takes to make brown rice. Apparently, it's more finicky and harder to cook than white rice, which didn't recommend itself to me. Enter Zojirushi
We were at some friends' house for a barbecue where they served up some brown rice. Their daughter is the same age and I figured that if they could manage making the stuff, maybe I could learn some tips and tricks. It was simple enough - she pointed to a squat, bubble-shaped appliance on the table and declared that it was easy to make brown rice with it. The bubble shaped thing was apparently a rice cooker. I had enough time to note the name emblazoned on its side before my daughter decided she wanted to tackle the steps on the deck by herself and I had to go supervise.
Later that week, I went to look up Zojirushi and see what they had to offer. They have a bewildering array of rice cooker choices, boasting bells and whistles I never knew one needed for a simple pot of rice. But they're a Japanese company and they should know about rice and I was determined to wade through the choices to see if they had a rice cooker that would work for us. Of course, they had the simple standard rice cookers I recognized, but what if I actually needed some of those extra features and I never knew it before? Their comparison chart only sort of helped. I zeroed in on the ones that listed brown rice as a menu option. Ooh, the same rice cookers could also do sweet rice. Mango sticky rice, here we come! Oh and there's a timer function so we can have our rice ready at our preset time? Score! And it also does porridge (read: it can do the good oatmeal that takes half an hour)? With a timer so it can start breakfast before we get up on a weekday morning? Score another point! I don't really need my rice cooker to make cake or use it as a slow cooker. I also wasn't sold on induction heating element or the pressurized system, especially as it added another $100-$150 to the cost. So we ended up with the NS-YAC10 model.
I certainly wasn't expecting to spend over $200 for a rice cooker. I'm a victim of my own self-imposed feature creep and besides I put in all that effort to research the cooker and it was recommended by some friends. Darn it, I deserve that rice cooker now! To get back to my roots! And feed my girl some tasty, healthy rice!
The rice hit the pan last week, and I'm still plotting the list of rice/oatmeal we need to try with it. White rice? Delicious, chewy, better than the restaurant rice! Brown rice? Well, it's not my preferred and we ended up eating it the day after because it took about an hour longer than we anticipated. Definitely a candidate for that timer feature. But still tasty and The Girl shoveled it into her face by the handful (to be fair, it's how she eats most things that she's willing to eat). I need to find some sweet rice and then we try the good oatmeal one morning. The best part? It's a breeze to clean.
Our household has joined the 21st century of rice cooking.
Thursday, August 30, 2012
Back in the Rice Habit
Monday, October 17, 2011
Madness: Scaled back Halloween costuming
I can't believe Halloween is almost upon us, which means it's time for making a new costume. I tossed around a few ideas with some new parameters. I'm looking to do a coordinated costume with The Girl that would be fairly easy to construct on limited time. Lee ended up going with a different theme (he's always wanted to do a good Jedi outfit and since we're not likely to be attending a nighttime costume event together, it made sense for him to splinter off this year). We considered a Portal 2 costume with me in the main character, Chell's, outfit and the baby as the cutest Portal gun ever. Instead we settled on a revisit of American McGee's Alice in Wonderland, only this time based on the second game, Alice: Madness Returns. Happily Alice has quite a wardrobe in the game, so I'll be able to wear a different style dress than the first goth Alice attempt. Due to fabric availability, I decided to go with this one: 
Meanwhile, Baby Girl will be my trusty White Rabbit. Only not quite as dementedly evil as the picture below.
I've already got a white rabbit outfit for her. I need to deck it out with a red waistcoat, top hat, a giant clock and gears. I've gotten my fabric for my dress and even a bought pattern that I'll be modifying to better replicate the steam dress. The stripey tights were relatively easy to buy and shockingly so were the shoes (thanks Spirit Halloween Store!). And Epic Weapons already makes the Vorpal Blade. Now all I need to do is get some sewing time. Whew.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Witchy, Witchy Night
We took my youngest sister, Jessica to see Wicked for her birthday a week ago. I bought the tickets sometime in January so we had a few months of anticipation. I tried to see Wicked on Broadway when I was at a conference in NYC several years ago but it was always sold out. I'm happy to report that Wicked didn't disappoint. I laughed, I cried. I'm going to see it again and again (well maybe my checkbook won't let me).
Wicked is a stage adaptation of Gregory Maguire's book of the same title. I picked up the book because I grew up watching The Wizard of Oz and was intrigued with the premise of seeing the other side of Oz. In short, the book was a mess; a meandering plot that picked up complexities as if it were a collector with a cat's attention span. The musical plot line was cleaner, straightforward and well-suited for a stage presentation. The musical focused on the relationship between Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West and G(a)linda, the Good Witch of the North. Although Elphaba is the main character, the story did a good job of making Glinda more than just the opposite foil to Elphaba's goals. She had her own valid point of view even if I didn't particularly relate to her.
To my mind, the success of the performance really came down to the quality of Elphaba's and Glinda's actresses. I was a little nervous when our program notified us that the standby actress would be playing Elphaba's role. Vicki Noon had some big shoes to fill because I'm a huge fan of Idina Menzel, who played the role on Broadway. But my doubts went away when she sang her first notes of "The Wizard and I." Kendra Kassebaum played Glinda adorably. She had the lion's share of funny lines through the show and she delivered hilariously. I managed to get seats in the fourth row so we really got to see the actors' expressions and the details of their costumes. While the rest of the cast enriched the story (and we had some wonderful actors for the other parts - Patty Duke played Madame Morrible and David Garrison played the Wizard), it was only when either of the witches were on stage that the performance felt gravity defying.
Speaking of which, "Defying Gravity" closed out the first act and was the highlight of the whole show. Jess made fun of me for tearing up as that song closed but it's not as if I could have helped it. As Elphaba rose above the stage, haloed by a star of lights, her soaring voice brought with it such an overwhelming sense of triumph and hope that one can't help but respond.
A fantastic, magical event overall. Go see it! Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go listen to "Defying Gravity" again. And again.
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Christmas Card Writing
Tonight, I put some Christmas music on (Harry Connick Jr., Charlie Brown Christmas, The Carpenters and Diana Krall on iTunes party shuffle), printed out our Christmas card address list, gathered this year's card selection, address labels and stamps and sat at the coffee table near the Christmas tree to start our annual ritual. I didn't always enjoy this process. When we first started this tradition, it had the scent of obligation. We would receive warm holiday wishes in the form of cards from the mailbox. It was such a nice feeling to actually receive mail that didn't suggest or demand an extraction of money from us, that we figured it would be nice if we provided a source of that feeling to our friends and family too. Prior to that year, I had written plenty of Christmas cards, but it was generally delivered to my family on Christmas Day in person. This ritual, this tradition was different. Family was now in different corners of the country and we wouldn't always see each and every one of them over the holidays. I poured the foundation on the ritual when I opened up Microsoft Word and generated the matrix of names and addresses (in alphabetic order of course).
Our Christmas card list includes both family and friends. Some friends we have come to treat as family. Other friends have drifted away such that the Christmas correspondence has become our sole communication. I have argued with myself that maybe those folks should be dropped off the list. But every year that I have received cards from them, I enjoyed hearing from them. Whether it's their holiday newsletter, telling us what their family has been up to in the past year, or a simple signature on the inside of the card. It has me thinking about them, the times we'd shared in the past, the gratitude that we were on their Christmas card list. The same thing happens when I pick up my Pilot G-2 fine point gel pen to write out their card. Whether it's fond memories of the last barbecue we had with them or wondering what they're up to now, we're sending our best wishes out to them at this time of year.
It's a process that goes well with Christmas lights and Vince Guaraldi Trio's jazzy O Tannenbaum. I guess it's just another way to count the blessings we have in friendship and kinship.