Rice cooker

On Saturday my middle school had a marathon competition (really a 10k for girls and 15k for boys). The weather was kind of raining, but it was warm enough that the kids didn't suffer too much. I went along the course to take pictures with the school's really high-tech camera. It was a pretty easy day and I was able to leave early in the afternoon.

All of that was just pretense for the really exciting thing I did this weekend, which was buy a rice cooker. The school had Monday off to make up for having the kids run on a Saturday so I took the opportunity to go to Kameoka, the medium-size city between Sonobe and Kyoto. It was nice to go on a Monday because the traffic wasn't bad and there were very few people in the stores. The main store I wanted to go to was a 'recycle shop'. As the name implies, it has a lot of used things, from silverware and furniture, to clothes and appliances. There are always good deals there and sometimes great ones if you get lucky.

Before I went to this recycle shop I stopped in an electronics store. The rice cookers there were state-of-the-art, with all kinds of features that I likely would not understand even if I knew more Japanese. They cost anywhere between 7000 and 60,000 yen, or about $70-$600 (of course, the more expensive models have more features). Even on sale the cheapest was 6000 yen and was clearly marketed to college students.

I resisted buying any of these until I got to the recycle shop and I do not regret this decision at all. The rice cooker I found was 3000 yen and, but for the fact that the plastic on the outside has colored with age, appears to be brand new (that is to say the metal parts are shiny and there is no visible damage outside or inside). I also found a toaster for pretty cheap. Both of these purchases combined effectively increase my kitchen by 50% (I would say doubled but it's hard to imagine a meal where I would eat both rice and toast).

Here's the first meal I made with my new (used) rice cooker:



For those of you who can't tell, it's curry rice with assorted vegetables and chicken. Incidentally, carrots also come in 'red' and sometimes have a vague onion-like taste, which is kind of moot because I also had onions and the curry flavor overpowered everything.