Nina Lewis

Over the years, I have heard people rave about their rice cooker.  A while back at work, I had a “meeting” with my student employees.  As part of that “meeting,” we cooked a yummy chicken/rice dish.  It was a great meeting.

One of the students brought his rice cooker to fix the rice.  This was my first up close and personal experience with one.  I was impressed.  It cooked the rice so fast.  And clean up was slicker than a whistle.  I was used to cooking rice in a heavy pressure cooker — and then dreading the clean up afterward.

My wonderful husband gave me a rice cooker for my birthday — in addition to the Beatle’s Rock Band, an extra guitar, and a Wii.  Man can’t live on Beatle’s music alone, you know.  That silly husband now expects me to stop playing Rock Band long enough to toss him a crumb of food once in a while.  He sure does have high expectations.

Even though the rice cooker didn’t even come close to my heart as did the Rock Band, I was still happy to get one.  And then I used it.

First batch.  White fluffy rice?  A gooey glob on the light side of charcoal was more like it.

Second batch.  A layer of crunchy, overcooked rice on the bottom with raw grains scattered throughout.

Third batch.  Same as the second.

Every time I used it, a geyser of starchy goo erupted from the little steam vent on the lid and spewed all over the cooker, the counter top, and clear into Illinois.  (The O’Hare International Airport in Chicago was shut down for hours.)  I hate it when that geyser happens.  So does the airport.

“I’m cooking like a new bride,” I lamely tell my husband.  He smiles politely, pats me encouragingly on the shoulder, and secretly wishes he could order out.

Totally disgruntled with this machine that is supposed to be the end-all of rice cooking, I did a search on the Internet to see what I was doing wrong.  ‘Rinse the rice till the water runs clear.’  (Don’t you like it how that sentence sounds when you say it out-loud?  Rinse the rice till the water runs clear . . . great alliteration!)  Did that.  More searching, searching, searching.

Then, someone said you have this problem with cheap rice.  Well, cheap Nina buys cheap rice.  What else would you expect, I ask you.

I’m skeptical.  Isn’t rice all the same?  I know that there is long grain rice, short grain rice, and minute rice but other than that isnt’ the only difference the name on the label?  I guess cheap and skeptical Nina will have to buy a SMALL bag of non-cheap rice to see if this solves the problem.  Hrumph!

If that really does solve the problem, what’s a body to do with 20 pounds of cheap rice in her pantry?  Anybody having a wedding in the near future?

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