On Rice: My Deep Dark Secret

Here is where I admit my dark secret.

I love inviting my Taiwanese friends over and cooking a dinner that involves serving rice.

All the food goes out on the table, including one pot on a cooling rack, with potholders on the top and bottom, wrapped in a clean dishcloth.

When they ask where the rice cooker is, I whip off the dishcloth to reveal a typical cooking pot with cooked rice inside, that I made on the stove.

Whaaaaat? They always say. That's how you cook rice? You don't have a rice cooker? I've never seen that before!

"I cook rice like your great grandma did," I said. "The way my mom taught me."

"But...nobody does that. You can just get a rice cooker!"

I can...but it's too much fun to shock the pants off my friends. I mentioned this to someone and her reply was "Wow. Usually I think 'foreigners are not too strange' but when I hear that you cook rice this way, I think 'no, that really is very strange'!"