Nah, it’s too expensive. Why waste money to have something do what I can already do with what I have? It can’t possibly be worth it. Where would we even put it?

I’ve never had as dismally incorrect running mental dialogue as I did in my resistance to the rice cooker. Millions of folks use them on the daily, and yet I had the audacity to think I was better than them, to think I could do it just as easily on the stovetop.

I’m here to admit it plainly - I WAS WRONG.

For years now I’ve struggled to make rice on the stovetop. Short-grain, basmati, brown, jasmine - I’ve woefully mistreated them all. Sometimes a recipe would result in the perfect pot; other times, the same recipe would fail for unbeknownst reasons. Too often I forced myself to just eat the subpar rice, too hungry or annoyed to start over. Never again!

I finally broke down and bought a far-too-bougie rice cooker, and after only two rounds of rice, I fell into pure, unadulterated love. It makes perfect rice every time. I can set it, forget it, and rest easy knowing that it will be perfect. No more guessing! No more eating trash rice!

So far, I’ve cranked it on first thing in the morning to make onigiri as a mid-morning snack (aka second breakfast). That batch I did with cucumber, salt, and black and white sesame seeds, and for another round I used sweet-tart pomegranate seeds as a balancing partner for the salty rice. I’ve already lost count of how many times I’ve used it for jasmine, including this morning for our lunches (tbd on how it travels and reheats in the microwave - I would really love to move away from the microwaveable bowls of rice…). I may be obsessed with putting my whole face into the jasmine-scented steam that streams out of the pot when it’s done. Tonight, we’ll see how it does with basmati.

So, yeah, I was wrong (just this once). The rice cooker is the perfect new roommate - dependable, tidy, and even perfectly polite as it whisper-beeps when rice is ready. As it turns out, we have plenty of space for it, and it will earn its keep!

What kitchen tool did you think you could live without until you actually tried it? Have you ever been as blatantly incorrect as me?

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