Rice Rice Glorious Rice
I love my rice cooker. I even loved the previous short-lived one (and the one before that) which had a teflon coating that peeled off as soon as you used it. But I particularly like our nice new one that doesn’t require that we eat flakes of non-stick surfacing with our rice.
I have always loved rice, but could never be bothered to cook it. Pasta was easier, so I cooked pasta. I even (cowers in shame) used instant rice.
But the rice cooker is so easy! Now, we don’t have to think about what we’re having for dinner until it’s half cooked.
The conversion to rice cooker happened because of a book - Japanese Women Don’t Get Old or Fat - which I think has changed my life. I say “I think� because House (the guru of everything) said that life-changing experiences don’t actually last a whole lifetime, just three months. I’m hoping that in this case, he’s wrong.
What the book is - if you look beyond the silly title - is a description of the Japanese home-style cooking upon which the author was raised, and her observations about the health benefits of this, rather than any other, style of eating. When I discovered this book a few weeks ago, I found the stories and descriptions (not to mention the recipes!) so inspiring that I sent the Man of the House out to buy a rice cooker, bought my own dashi and miso paste, and did my very best to recreate the general eating philosophy of the book.
I was particularly inspired by the idea of showing your love of your family through serving food that is both tasty and healthy. I was also won over by how easy & quick it is to cook basic food in the Japanese style.
And it occurred to me, a little belatedly, that the food style I had taken to with such abandon - rice as the central carbohydrate source, steamed fish, fresh vegies, small amounts of other meats - is basically the way that my mother has been eating & living for the last ten years or more, since I left home.
Shh. Don’t tell her she was right all along.
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