Sporty

I originally wanted to write about those previously-mentioned delicious, diet-destroying devils, maple buns. However, this is proving more difficult than anticipated, as I'll go and buy one and before I can take a picture of the bun, Chris eats it. This is probably for the better, because otherwise I would eat it (and six more of its fiendishly warm, fresh and fattening friends) and I still have 13 pounds to lose. Since I am without a photograph of a maple bun and accompanying copy, I'll write about our rice cooker.

Rice cookers are big business here (and in China and Korea and so on) and the price range runs the gamut from a dollar bamboo steamer to several hundred dollars. The most common price point seems to be about 160 dollars. The cookers have a zillion functions and can also be used for cooking other things (chicken, steamed buns, etc).

Our rice cooker was a gift from Sly's mom, Midori-san. It's an LG brand, which is a Korean company, known for their high quality and low prices (my last stateside mobile phone was manufactured by them). It has all kinds of features and it works great. Best of all--it's RED, thus making it a sort of sports car model amongst all the plain white cookers. It can go from 0 to 4 servings of rice in 20 minutes (thanks to its pressure-based speed cook option).

It has it's own little "garage" in the kitchen cupboard:The cooker also came with an instruction manual in four languages. But true to the old Asian tradition of making everything into Manga (comic book), the manual has illustrations as well.

Those crazy Koreans. THEY think that this is the univeral icon for "If you wear a pacemaker, you should not use this appliance, as it generates an electrical field that may cause interference."

But they are mistaken, since we know it is the universal icon for
"Do not FUCK with my BUTTON."

And that is my post about my rice cooker, which isn't Japanese but Korean.

PS - The rice cooker's name is Taro. Sly calls hers "Ladybug"