Brown Rice is the spawn of satan

Because of my partial Asian heritage, sometimes people get shocked that I don’t know how to cook rice (”but it’s so simple!”). Thing is I grew up with that wonderful invention known as a rice cooker. I put in the cups of rice and fill the water to the line specified, press a button and it tells me when its ready and even keeps it warm for me. Stovetops don’t keep food warm for you, they burn down your house.

So now, living without one because of lack of benchtop space, I never cook rice. But this week, I finally overcame my aversion to cooking rice – blame it on an insatiable craving – and went and bought some brown rice. Now I should have known better, I should have started with something simpler like stock standard white long grain, but no, that craving was specifically for brown and cravings once started can never be stopped.

Big mistake! Apart from taking close to an hour to cook, it somehow managed to actually get harder into the cooking process before becoming edible. They are wrong when they say cockroaches will be the only thing to survive a nuclear war – I have no doubt brown rice will still be standing when the apocalyse comes.

From this traumatic experience, I’ve realised that even if I have to store it under my bed, I have to have a rice cooker. I like this fancy schmancy computerised one from Tiger that cooks any style of rice that you can possibly imagine, it even cooks “rice porridge” (popular Asian breakfast) and “rice with red beans”:

Mmmm… Yummy!