happy 101 award and new rice cooker

lia (from one of my favorite bento blogs, my bentolicious) and lexi (from diary of a delinquent housewife), both passed along this award to me — thanks ladies!

the rules for this award are as follows:  copy the award image into a post; list 10 things that make you happy; tag 10 bloggers who brighten your day; link to their blogs; and notify the award recipients (who should link back to the sender’s blog).  ok, 10 things that make me happy shouldn’t be too hard, right?  here goes (not in order of importance):

1. my boyfriend and my dog.  whenever i am upset about work or whatever, they both always have a way to make me smile.  (ok, sometimes more the dog than the boyfriend, but dogs are just like that — they are always game to give you affection, and never have their own problems going on that would prevent them from focusing on you!)
2. new bento supplies!!!  i’ve received/am about to receive a few great new things from bento pals, and i am very excited to debut them here soon — keep your eyes out for some cool new decorative accents in my bento lunches!
3. horror movies.  i know that it’s weird to be happy about people getting killed and stuff, but come on, it’s fictional.  and they’re such a guilty pleasure, and i love that my boyfriend puts up with watching them all the time, even though he hates them.  thanks honey!
4. time with my dad.  i’ve always been a daddy’s girl, and always will be.
5. um, FOOD!  obviously!  i eat when i’m happy and it makes me happier, i eat when i’m stressed and it calms me down, i eat when i’m bored and it entertains me.  i love exploring new dishes and types of cuisine, new restaurants, new cooking techniques — everything about food (ok, except maybe the “cleaning up” part…).
6. new shoes!  need i say more?
7. music.  in college (and even after, in law school) i used to be really into staying “up” on a lot of different new music scenes and going to shows all the time.  now that i work a real job, i rarely have the energy for shows, and tend to spend my free time doing other things besides researching new bands and what’s “hip.”  but my favorite music is still my favorite music, and there is a certain special happiness that comes from listening to something you love but haven’t heard in a while, or making a great mix for a road trip, etc.
8. fall.  it’s my favorite season, and every year, as september starts to dwindle and we approach the crisp and crackle of chilly october evenings, i get super excited.  halloween is my favorite holiday, and it’s sort of the highlight of a season full of other things that make me happy, like apple picking and taking out my scarves and sweaters.
9. my friends.  i’m so lucky to have a great hodge-podge of old friends (still have the same best friend i made when i was 14), new friends who share my professional interests, medium-old friends (from college and law school), straight and gay friends, friends of different sizes/colors/religions, friends from and/or living in different parts of the world.  i don’t know what i’d do without this network of support, commiseration, fun, etc.  knowing i have access to all these different people (and their ideas and perspectives) makes me truly happy.
10. being organized.  i’m kind of anal, and i get extremely satisfied (which is a kind of happiness, no?) when i have labelled things or come up with a new system for storing stuff, etc.  one year for chanukah my boyfriend got me a p-touch labeler; i know it’s kinda weird, but it was one of the best presents i ever got!

ok, so now you know how big of a dork/corn-ball i really am.  oh well!  here are the ten bloggers to whom i am passing along this award.  hey blogger friends, if i didn’t pick you, it’s not because i don’t love ya!  some of you had just already been selected by previous happy 101 recipients.

1. karina at bunches and bits; 2. hippomum at chara-ben workout; 3. mook at french bento; 4. lian mama at lian mama obento; 5. shoppingmum at mothering corner; 6. babykins! at soul soup soap; 7. texasmomof4; 8. dicentragirl at touch of nectar; 9. javapot at mycuppatales; 10. tammy (aka kashmirkat) at an american in bento.

— ♥ —

i wasn’t going to update the blog today, since i didn’t bring a lunch to work (i had a lunch meeting with a client).  but since i got the cool award from lia and am posting anyway, i thought i’d take the opportunity to discuss my new rice cooker.  i also noticed last night that, since i did my post on kong bap, a bunch of people have clicked through to the amazon link i provided to my new toy.

yup, that’s my baby.  ok, so cuckoos are not that sleek or modern (unlike this zojirushi i looked at) — in fact, some of them have really corny designs, like pearlized red with old-lady-ish flowers.  BUT, after my boyfriend and i did a TON of research on this, we determined that this cuckoo model would be the most versatile.  it has a “multi cook” setting for foods other than rice (so that i can do stews, chili, kalbi jjim, etc.), and it is a pressure cooker, so it’s able to cook brown rice (and beans, or brown rice and beans together, which is kong bap) much more quickly than a regular rice cooker.  we tried the pressure setting with white rice as well, and it came out surprisingly tender (but not mushy), with the right amount of moistness and stickiness.  most of the zojirushi models are NOT pressure cookers, and the one that is costs waaaay more than my cuckoo.

plus, when it’s getting ready to vent steam, it makes noises that remind me of a choo-choo train, and it even goes “toot toot” (or maybe it’s “coo koo” or “choo choo”)!  not kidding!  the rest of the time it talks to me in korean, and it sings a little song when my rice is completely done.   if you want a giggle, check out this cuckoo commercial, in which the woman literally cuddles with her cooker at the end, or this one, which is apparently aimed at the “stylish” rice cooking set.

what will they come up with next?  a rice-cooking robot who actually stands in your kitchen and rinses the rice for you before cooking it perfectly?