The rice cooker was a lifesaver when making sushi in culinary school (and that's about the only time we were allowed to use a household appliance). I found it to be useful because cooking rice perfectly on the stove is not as easy as one would think (and I'm not talking about the boil-in-bag kind). Outside of class, those cookers are convenient if you eat rice frequently, but never suited my personal cooking needs, or piqued my interest. Until I was shown the way, at least.
I was scrolling through my Google feed — packed with various food blog posts — and stumbled upon an article about rice cookers from the New York Times. What's this?! Not only can it cook perfect rice, but it can steam, bake, saute, braise, simmer, poach and more?
This article appears in Dec 10-16, 2008.