Rice cooker!
MY RICE COOKER IS HERE!!!!!
Ehemm... I was actually half way through writing an emo entry involving headaches, my stomach throwing a fit over raw onions and me refreshing parcelforce's tracking page 3274939283749 times to see where my parcel with the rice cooker had come to when the door bell rang! *queue dramatic music*
It was the parcelforce guy with my rice cooker! YAY!
Now, I have had a rice cooker since my second year at university, courtesy of my mum and an excellent offer at Aldi, but this rice cooker was
a) huge (read 10 cup)
b) due to size, struggled with making the potions I usually wanted - like 1 cup or 1/2 a cup
c) had a too light lid, thus covering the entire kitchen in sputtering hot water when making rice
d) still did this even if I held the lit shut, thus covering me in sputtering hot water
e) was very temperamental about how the rice would end up. I have had burned soggy rice, just soggy rice, just burned rice and occasionally nice rice (yay!). It was also completely incapable of cooking anything without a slightly burned layer ended up at the bottom.
Thus, after yet another incident of kitchen covered in water and slightly singed hands, I decided that this would be no more and I would buy a rice cooker with a clasp or some other sort of properly shutting lid! I spotted one at our local Asian store, which was tempting, but decided to have a look online. Turns out that 99% of European rice cookers have the silly lid my old one had and that also 99% of its users (judging by reports on amazon) suffer from the same issue I do, which is kitchen covered in water. O.O
WHAT? People are willing to put up with that???
The only firm that seemed to have caught on to people not liking their kitchen covered in scolding water was Tefal, who had indeed a rice cooker with a properly closing lid. I must admit though that at this stage I was suspicious of all rice cooker makers that weren't Asian, as the idea that most European rice cooker makers thinking it is acceptable to have a kitchen covered in water boggled my mind. Badly. So, I tried to hunt for a Japanese make rice cooker. And failed. The only ones I could find ended up being more mini ovens with the ability to make bread, bake cakes and do all sorts of other things that I tend to use a REAL oven for. I can see why these things would be awesome in Japan, having lived there in a tiny apartment without an oven for a year (and missing the oven horribly), but I didn't understand why I should pay extra for lots of features I'd be unlikely to use.
So I went to the American amazon to see what they had on offer and discovered a massive range of Japanese make ones - including one that was intended for only three cups of rice and the size of a toaster! Three cups of rice! Just the size needed for Garry and myself! Size of a toaster! We could put it on our work space and I could use it regularly, rather than having to get Garry to drag the massive one from on top the cupboard! Being able to reach it without a ladder or killing myself means I could use it more often - even when Garry isn't at home. YAY! I want that rice cooker! >:-3
Obviously it didn't exist on amazon.co.uk. Looking on the firm's homepage I discovered that in Europe they only make thermos flasks. I am sure they are awesome thermos flasks, but I sort off already have a thermos flask and I don't need a new one. Googling it, just resulted in lots of "Where can I buy this in the EU? No one has it and I am desperate!!! Please help!" type results. At least I wasn't the only one out there searching. I found one on ebay at a reasonable price and almost bought it until I notice the 60 pound (!) delivery charge. I could buy an extra rice cooker for that delivery charge! No thanks.
Finally, after several hours of searching (and finding out all sorts of interesting facts about rice cookers, rice, the cooking process and similar things), I FINALLY stumbled up www.yumasia.co.uk, the homepage of a couple who moved to the UK. She is Japanese and once she had arrived obviously demanded a rice cooker... and they couldn't find one that one's cover their kitchen in hot water to save their lives. After a lot of long and tedious searching they decided that this was getting ridiculous and opened their own shop with rice cookers imported from Japan and adjusted for the European use (read the European current). They have only a very small range (one three cup, one 5 1/2 cup and one 10 cup rice cooker, as well as a Japanese kettle), but they did have the rice cooker I wanted. Ha! Success!
Thus yesterday it arrived (after ordering Sunday night - not bad delivery times for a small family business) and I am very happy. It makes delicious rice of all varieties. Yesterday I had white rice for testing purposes and this morning I had rice with cardamon, cloves and raisins which was also very very good. No more burned or soggy rice! AND my kitchen counter is water free! ^_^ *pads her new baby*
Sadly Japanese people are apparently smarter than European ones, or at least so I assume judging my the lack of "before first use" instructions in the manual. As a result I fiddled forever to get the spatula holder into the correct hole (only to discover a small part has to be snipped off, which seemed obvious retrospectively) and almost turned it on with the paper in between the heating element and the rice bowl still in place O.O I only spotted it out of the corner of my eye when putting the rice bowl back in after the initial wash. I don't want to know what would have happened to my lovely cooker if I had missed it :-S
Photos of my baby and particularly yummy recipes will follow :D
I could also tell you about the horrible migraine I have been fighting with, how upping my pain meds made me comatose for 12(!) hours or how I didn't sleep much due to my stomach hating raw onions, but I thought my odyssey to get my hands on my gorgeous rice cooker would be more interesting and less whiney. I am already doing enough whining as it is.
Ehemm... I was actually half way through writing an emo entry involving headaches, my stomach throwing a fit over raw onions and me refreshing parcelforce's tracking page 3274939283749 times to see where my parcel with the rice cooker had come to when the door bell rang! *queue dramatic music*
It was the parcelforce guy with my rice cooker! YAY!
Now, I have had a rice cooker since my second year at university, courtesy of my mum and an excellent offer at Aldi, but this rice cooker was
a) huge (read 10 cup)
b) due to size, struggled with making the potions I usually wanted - like 1 cup or 1/2 a cup
c) had a too light lid, thus covering the entire kitchen in sputtering hot water when making rice
d) still did this even if I held the lit shut, thus covering me in sputtering hot water
e) was very temperamental about how the rice would end up. I have had burned soggy rice, just soggy rice, just burned rice and occasionally nice rice (yay!). It was also completely incapable of cooking anything without a slightly burned layer ended up at the bottom.
Thus, after yet another incident of kitchen covered in water and slightly singed hands, I decided that this would be no more and I would buy a rice cooker with a clasp or some other sort of properly shutting lid! I spotted one at our local Asian store, which was tempting, but decided to have a look online. Turns out that 99% of European rice cookers have the silly lid my old one had and that also 99% of its users (judging by reports on amazon) suffer from the same issue I do, which is kitchen covered in water. O.O
WHAT? People are willing to put up with that???
The only firm that seemed to have caught on to people not liking their kitchen covered in scolding water was Tefal, who had indeed a rice cooker with a properly closing lid. I must admit though that at this stage I was suspicious of all rice cooker makers that weren't Asian, as the idea that most European rice cooker makers thinking it is acceptable to have a kitchen covered in water boggled my mind. Badly. So, I tried to hunt for a Japanese make rice cooker. And failed. The only ones I could find ended up being more mini ovens with the ability to make bread, bake cakes and do all sorts of other things that I tend to use a REAL oven for. I can see why these things would be awesome in Japan, having lived there in a tiny apartment without an oven for a year (and missing the oven horribly), but I didn't understand why I should pay extra for lots of features I'd be unlikely to use.
So I went to the American amazon to see what they had on offer and discovered a massive range of Japanese make ones - including one that was intended for only three cups of rice and the size of a toaster! Three cups of rice! Just the size needed for Garry and myself! Size of a toaster! We could put it on our work space and I could use it regularly, rather than having to get Garry to drag the massive one from on top the cupboard! Being able to reach it without a ladder or killing myself means I could use it more often - even when Garry isn't at home. YAY! I want that rice cooker! >:-3
Obviously it didn't exist on amazon.co.uk. Looking on the firm's homepage I discovered that in Europe they only make thermos flasks. I am sure they are awesome thermos flasks, but I sort off already have a thermos flask and I don't need a new one. Googling it, just resulted in lots of "Where can I buy this in the EU? No one has it and I am desperate!!! Please help!" type results. At least I wasn't the only one out there searching. I found one on ebay at a reasonable price and almost bought it until I notice the 60 pound (!) delivery charge. I could buy an extra rice cooker for that delivery charge! No thanks.
Finally, after several hours of searching (and finding out all sorts of interesting facts about rice cookers, rice, the cooking process and similar things), I FINALLY stumbled up www.yumasia.co.uk, the homepage of a couple who moved to the UK. She is Japanese and once she had arrived obviously demanded a rice cooker... and they couldn't find one that one's cover their kitchen in hot water to save their lives. After a lot of long and tedious searching they decided that this was getting ridiculous and opened their own shop with rice cookers imported from Japan and adjusted for the European use (read the European current). They have only a very small range (one three cup, one 5 1/2 cup and one 10 cup rice cooker, as well as a Japanese kettle), but they did have the rice cooker I wanted. Ha! Success!
Thus yesterday it arrived (after ordering Sunday night - not bad delivery times for a small family business) and I am very happy. It makes delicious rice of all varieties. Yesterday I had white rice for testing purposes and this morning I had rice with cardamon, cloves and raisins which was also very very good. No more burned or soggy rice! AND my kitchen counter is water free! ^_^ *pads her new baby*
Sadly Japanese people are apparently smarter than European ones, or at least so I assume judging my the lack of "before first use" instructions in the manual. As a result I fiddled forever to get the spatula holder into the correct hole (only to discover a small part has to be snipped off, which seemed obvious retrospectively) and almost turned it on with the paper in between the heating element and the rice bowl still in place O.O I only spotted it out of the corner of my eye when putting the rice bowl back in after the initial wash. I don't want to know what would have happened to my lovely cooker if I had missed it :-S
Photos of my baby and particularly yummy recipes will follow :D
I could also tell you about the horrible migraine I have been fighting with, how upping my pain meds made me comatose for 12(!) hours or how I didn't sleep much due to my stomach hating raw onions, but I thought my odyssey to get my hands on my gorgeous rice cooker would be more interesting and less whiney. I am already doing enough whining as it is.