Tuesday, October 03, 2006

Televisions vs. Rice Cookers


A recent report said that the average U.S. household has 2.55 people and 2.73 TV's. What this means is that in the U.S. there are more TV's than people in the average household. My parents have 3 TV's, one in the family room, one in their bedroom and another in a guest room. My in-laws have 3, one in the living room, one in the kitchen and one in the bedroom. In this regard my own family is way below average since we only have one television. It's one of those bulbous tube type behemoths from the 90's that takes up half of our living room.

But when it comes to other essential household appliances, I know there is one area where I've definitely got the average U.S. household beat: Rice Cookers. A lot of people are fine cooking rice in a regular pot or God forbid in a microwave. Not me. I'm a rice snob, gourmet, and gourmand wrapped into one. I regularly buy and stock 10-20lb bags of long grain jasmine, short grain calrose and short grain brown rice. I also have several other varieties like risotto, long grain brown and wild rice blends in much smaller quantities.

I'm like a ravenous hobbit with a bad carb addiction. I can eat rice for first breakfast, second breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea, dinner, supper and at late-night snacktime. I also don't consider rice a starch as my chef friends do. I'll eat rice with pasta, potatoes, bread, noodles, and even other varieties of rice and rice dishes. I'm a riceaholic and damn proud!

So how many rice cookers do we own? We currently have 5. One main one for everyday use, a larger one for when we have guests, and 3 that are in storage as keepsakes. That's even more than the number of iPods that my wife and I own combined.

Here's a list of our rice cookers:
5 cup 18 setting fuzzy logic rice cooker with 24 hour timer/alarm (wedding present-on counter)
10 cup rice cooker for when we have guests (wedding present-stored under the counter)
3 cup rice cooker from my college days (in storage)
6 cup rice cooker from my bachelor days (in storage)
Microwave rice cooker (well meaning present-in "deep" storage)

Do you consider yourself a rice snob/addict?
How many rice cookers do you have in your household?

18 comments:

Henri said...

Televisions: 7
1 Sharp LCD - 27 inch
3 Sony Standard Tube- various sizes
1 Magnovox old school
1 Super old school TV with built in Handle and rotary Knobs
1 Optomo Home theater projector

Rice Cookers: 2
1- 5 cup Fuzzy-Logic but instructions in Korean and like way too many buttons on the front so I can't run it, in garage
1- 5 cup Traditional two select rice cook/Keep warm, on counter

Cats: 1
Kids: 1
Parents: 2

Damn we got a lot of TVs.

Puka said...

I think Asians might have the market cornered on the most refrigerators as well. I know my mom has four.

We only have two TVs. The Mister and I don't watch them much. It's the DD that monopolizes them.

Only have one rice cooker. Used to have two but we really didn't need that many. I was thinking I might get a small one, though, so I can have brown rice. The Mister doesn't want anything but his trusty white rice.

Anonymous said...

1 zojirushi rice cooker
1 zojirushi bread baker
1 mistubishi wide screen tv
1 phillips tv
1 rca tv
1 zenith tv
1 other brand tv
4 dell desktop computers
1 gateway desktop computer
1 sony ps2
1 nintendo
1 xbox
2 small dogs
add water, stir, bake, serve

Unknown said...

tvs - 5ish
1 - phillips somba, 13" w/ rooster alarm, circa 2000.
1 - sony 30" (apprx) tube tv, circa 1999.
1 - funai 11" (apprx) tube tv, circa 1995.
2 - personal computers w/ youtube.com bookmarks (does that count?)

rice cookers - 3ish
1 - zojirushi 6 cup
1 - medium sized pot w/ lid for the odd occasion when i can't use the rice cooker
1 - large sautee pan for risotto

rice in pantry -
jasmine, basmati, risotto, spanish

rice chef - 1
rice eaters - 4

Anonymous said...

Televisions: 5
1 60" Panasonic old school rear projection in 'great room'
1 52"(?) Sony LCD in play roon
1 25" Magnavox telecorder (TV/VCO combo) mounted onto the wall in master bedroom
1 19" Phillips in SuperNanny's room (that's her's)
1 27" Panasonic on lend to the neighbor

Rice Cookers: 3
1 imported Korean brand 5 cup cooker
1 American crockpot/rice cooker combo (almost never used)
1 risotto pan

Kids: 2 (1 each)
Nanny: 1
Cats: 1
Dogs: 1
iPods: 3
iBook G4: 1
Powerbook Mac: 1
Xbox: 1


must . . . buy . . . more . . . electronics . . .

daddy in a strange land said...

Damn, you people... :) What's up with the living up to the stereotype of the conspicuosly-consuming-technologically-savvy-disposable-income-having-too-much-rice-eating-Asian? ;) You're making me and my wife look bad--or poor.

TVs: 2

1 Sony Trititron WEGA that's been through 1 or 2 moves (can't remember) and I don't even know the screen size and I ain't getting the tape measure out for you so oh well, and it hasn't been used since we moved and put it in the bedroom

1 Hitachi Ultravision big-screen rear-projection (again, size unknown) with the ugly wood accents that we inherited from the previous owners of our home in lieu of contributing to the closing costs, and since they basically built the built-in wall-unit entertainment center around it, good thing, too

(And since we made our tech-savvy friend connect our TiVo but we accidentally unplugged the DVD player that was also inherited but we're too lazy and tech-unsavvy, okay, since I'M too whatever I just said, to pull the humongous tv out of its tight space and try to figure out what wires go to what and where through these tiny holes in the built-in cabinet, we haven't used the DVD player since. Thank god for TiVo'd episodes of Sesame Street.)


Rice cookers:1

1- 10-cup Hitachi Chime-o-Matic, with one on-off switch and one warm-cook switch, none of this fancy 10-kinds-of-rice-at-different-textures-and-keeps-it-warm-for 5-days shit

And okay, yeah, the iMac G4, but I use the Mac 'cause it's all point-click-drag, I don't actually know anything.

1 dog, 1 kid, 2 parents, and a TiVo programmed to record Battlestar Galactica, Sesame Street, and random food shows

Unknown said...

have y'all seen that fridge with the tv in the door?

if they ever make a rice cooker that has a tv IN it... WE ARE ALL DOOMED.

Dana said...

TVs - 2 (one in the living room so P@H can watch football, one in the living room so we can turn Clifford on in the mornings and lure Noodle away)

Rice Cooker - 1

Bread Machine - 1

Pasta Machine - 1

PC - 1

Ipods - 2

Ultimate Geek Toy: Solar Powered Ipod and Cell Phone Charger in Case of Hurricanes/Power Outages - 1
(www.Solio.com)

Anonymous said...

Damn... I'm not worthy - we have 2 TVs and 1 rice cooker that is missing its adaptor, i.e. not usuable in North America. Need to go and buy us a replacement.

Gia-Gina said...

3-CPU's
3-laptops
3-19 " computer screens
2-DVD players
2500+ Cd's
300+ DVD's
1-large TV, I think 52"
1-dog
2-sofa's
2-Xbox'es
1-PlayStation

In the Kitchen:
2-woks

and sadly only

1-rice cooker

When I was a kid growing up we had 3 or 4. For jook, small portions of rice and large portions. Now with my mom coming I had to buy one for all the great stuff she is going to make. Can you believe I made it a year and a half by making stove top rice?

thisislarry said...

DISL, I am with you. Like Billy Joel says: you get more mileage with a cheap pair of sneakers.

We have one no-featured one-switch, what-power-button-just- plug-it-in, rice cooker, so old I cant even remember where we got it. It works fine. It makes rice.

(tho, really, I'm dying for one of those fuzzy logic ones, if someone can explain to me what the !@#$ fuzzy logic is, and why it worth an extra $50)

Anonymous said...

1 - Rice cooker, but man, the rice paddle that came with it is a badass NASA engineered thing that is plastic, has a zillion little nodules on it, and rice will not stick to that badboy. We had another one, but it broke when I tried to fix it. Kept the pot part, though.

2 - TVs

thisislarry said...

re my last comment, I should have just asked google. Here's an article on fuzzy logic rice cookers from the SF Chronicle:

http://makeashorterlink.com/?T587167ED

checkbook: open.

daddy in a strange land said...

Ka_Jun-- I'm shocked! You said "rice paddle," not "sanduk." ;) Just kidding...

ThisIsLarry-- Dude, you're disillusioning me! You're the industrial designer man! You're supposed to have only beautiful-and-functional things in your home... :)

Puka said...

I got a Zojirush fuzzy logic in 2002. I have no idea about any of its added features. I just wanted it because fuzzy logic sounded very Sim-like. I was into playing The Sims back then. Plus, I thought it would look cool on my kitchen counter.

honglien123 said...

Televisions 4
1 20" Zenith Flatscreen - Lil' Bro's room
1 36" Sony - living room
1 32" Panasonic Flatscreen (alas, not flat panel) - our room
1 61" RCA DLP - office

Rice Cookers 2
1 - 5 cup Tiger in storage (was ours)
1 - 5 cup Tiger in use (my moms)

Rice Cookers given as "going to college" gifts 6 - All Tiger (We're just a Tiger family, they hooked us young.)

Desktop PCs in use: 4
Laptop PCs in use: 2
Printers: 3
Refrigerators: 3
People: 8
Square footage: >1500 square feet (not including porch, courtyard, backyard bathroom, laundry room, and kitchen)

honglien123 said...

Oh, btw, since I just noticed someone put in their video game systems:

2 PSP
1 Nintendo DS
2 Gameboy Advance SP
2 Playstation 2
2 Gamecube
1 Xbox
2 Xbox 360
1 Playstation One
1 Dreamcast
1 Super Nintendo
1 Genesis
And do these guys (my hubs and my lil bro) USE all these on a regular basis??? :sigh: yes.

Anonymous said...

Hah, honglien123 asked me to list all the game systems we have in the household, I ticked them all off, then wondered why she needed a list. She told me about this post, so I took a peek. All I could think of was "Damn, we just created an internet hit list of whose houses to rob":P

And talking about rice cookers, remember to clean them out every once in awhile! I remember going to a friend's house, and we were about to eat, so I popped open the rice cooker to grab some rice for little goose, and I was confronted with a sphere of orange and black fuzz. I swear, the shit was moving and looked like it was going to eat me! Anyways, that's my public service message of the day:P