Morning Friend,
I was struck in the left brain by my amazing Black and Decker automatic rice cooker this morning.
It wasn't too terribly painful but I'm afraid it may have left a mark.
I don't think it was from being too close?.....I mean the thing has a glass lid for goodness sakes so you can gaze in wondrous awe at rice cooking to "perfection".
There is NOTHING in the instructions which says, "Caution! Overexposure may induce profound metaphoric musing. Symptoms lasting more than 4 hours require immediate editorial intervention!"
I was nevertheless stricken by how this remarkably simple and cleverly effective appliance is a lot like my life itself these days.
Let me first say that as one who has eaten and enjoyed my own primitively prepared "imperfect" rice on many occasions I can tell you I was skeptical about adding another "gadget" to my already space-challenged kitchen. ( It's so crowded I've got to go outside to change my mind!)
Besides which there was always an element of "'adventure" to rice-cooking that made the finished product - which could be anywhere in the range from "gloppy" to "crispy" - a little more palatable.
But I'm here to tell you, the thing works like a charm.
And the concept is simple. ( as simple as it must now be for the inventor to pretty well "print his own money"!)
What you do is simply throw in a specific amount of rice, water and spices, push a button, and walk away.
As Buckwheat would say, "It's a simple as that!".
Come back 20 minutes later and it's not only cooked but it's sitting in "warm" mode; a good thing indeed for those who might walk WAAAY away.
The machine has some sort of spring loaded SCALE which initiates the cooking cycle based on the weight of the uncooked rice and water.
Once the weight reduces to what "perfect and fluffy" rice should weigh, it clicks down into warm.
It's not "fool-proof" because you do have to put the correct ratio of rice to water but the measuring lines for that are clearly marked and the instructions are pretty concise and understandable, ( even to a pseudo-fool like myself).
Now the REAL beauty of this little beauty is in the spice.
You can put just about ANY flavoring your little culinary heart desires... from garlic ( my favorite), to lemon, tomato, pineapple, mustard, hot pepper, bacon, anchovy, curry....even cinnamon!
So there you have it my friend....POWER!
The power and abilty to concoct a perfectly textured side dish, ( or MAIN dish if you happen to be poor or oriental?) which you can customize, tantalize, kick up ( or down) a notch, zestify, inundate, fabulate and modulate....JUST the way you want!
As I sat there basking in the garlicky aroma of what was going to be part of my lunch today, and the aura of the magnificent day itself, I got to thinking about how so much of my day to day life has become simply beautiful, in its' beautiful simplification.
(I've got to do something with my mind without the rice to worry about now don't I?)
Do you ever lay in bed some mornings a little fearful of the day ahead?
And then when the courage to arise comes, it's tempered with hope, that it's going to be an O.K. day?
Do you then tip-toe discreetly trying to get through the day without too much fuss....blandly....like plain, ill-cooked rice?
As you may know, I spent years living like that.
Fearfully hoping that the days, and the rice, wouldn't be too terribly bad.
My recipe for living was complicated by alcoholic over-indulgence, convoluted by spiritual starvation, confused by erratic irrationality and decidedly not simple.
Feeling anywhere from "gloppy to crispy" made just getting out of bed in the morning an adventure.
In concert with the daily physiological toll that heavy drinking takes out on a person is a painfully palpable plethora of problems and confounding complications that just make everything, everyone and every eventuality difficult to swallow.
As far as flavor went, there always seemed to be too much of what you won't find on any spice rack; anger-root, sorrow-sauce, self-pity powder, fear-leaf, doubt-seed, pain paste, and of course always overdone with the hopeless-shire!
To have come from that, and now simply turning myself ON each day like a switch, knowing the day is going to be at a minimum "perfect" but likely moreso depending on how many notches up I choose to kick it, never ceases to amaze me.
Like that amazing little rice cooker.
I've got the Good Lord to thank for the perfectly amazing days.
And now Black and Decker for the amazingly perfect rice!
Amazing.
Love timmy:/
Laugh as much as you breathe...
Love as long as you live ( truly)
