RIP Rice cooker

My rice cooker died last week. Actually, to be more precise, it went out in a literal blaze of glory. T was outside grilling Korean short ribs for dinner and the rice cooker timer had popped and was happily keeping our rice all nice and warm when it suddenly started popping and sparking like an insano indoor fireworks display. I make light, but it was actually a little scary. I'll admit, I screamed a little when it first started, but otherwise was just frozen by fright.

Turns out, the cord, which was admittedly not in the best condition was a teeny bit wet. OK, so it was a really frayed and chewed up looking cord sitting in a very small puddle of water. Shoot me. So all told, we're actually really lucky that it wasn't much much worse, and also that nothing else caught fire, like the cloth stand mixer cover just a few inches away.

I'm so bummed though as I've had that rice cooker forever. I actually swiped it from my parents' house when I went away to college, so it's got to be at least 15 years old...although eek, now that I think about it, probably more than 20! Gosh, I'm old. Now I have to decide whether to replace it with one of the shiny new expensive Japanese models that most people swear makes perfect rice (but nothing else) or stick to the old school and get a replica of what I had. I haven't priced them out yet, but I'm leaning towards replica. I'll have to checkout the selection at the local Chinese grocery stores.

Oh, and despite the drama, the rice inside the cooker was just fine. There's a little char mark on the counter though.