cooking credit

I have to take a break from my vacation chronicles, which are taking on the consistency and excitement of sugarless molasses thinking its way down a wheelchair ramp. Not that there wasn't fun and adventure in my vacation, mind, but there's only so far one can recap the glorious days of yore without starting to get that Teflon Peeling Off the Brand New $600 Pot feeling about the memories.

So, a break. Just for one entry. You can give me an entry, right?

"Hi. My name's Yuhri."

In chorus, now. "Hi, Yuhri."

"I'm a kitchengadgaholic."

I am William Sonoma's whore. Cooking.com? I'm their whipping girl. Crate & Barrel? Bring on the latex! And as long as you're at it, hand me that combination apple-corer-peeler-dicer-minter-carver-sander-painter. Have it in red? No? You have it in teal? I'll take it anyway. Oh, send me the red one when you get it in.

Haha! I don't eat apples. Joke's on you. Here's my credit card. Oh, and my ID. No, don't send me your catalog; I already get four copies every month. No, wait. Send me another copy anyway. I don't think I have one for the bathroom. Telephone number? Are you going to call me with credit card propositions and featured sales? No? Why? Here's my work phone number. Oh, and my cell phone. I carry that with me all the time, 24/7. Only my clients know that number. They call it for life and death emergencies. They're doctors, so that means something, hahaha! Oh, and my mother, she knows it, but she doesn't call it for emergencies since she prefers not to worry me when she's given the kiss of life by paramedics because she's been found dead on the kitchen floor after a lethal yellowjacket sting. I jump when that phone rings. My heartbeat jumps to 160 beats a minute. You go ahead and call that number whenever you have a special on mashed potato molds.

Part of the trouble is the Guy, who has an open mind insofar as consumerism is concerned. I have to be careful about what I comment on, whether during those rare commercials that sneak past my TiVo-conditioned remote control finger, or in passing during some glance through a magazine or webpage. All it takes is one idle remark, "Huh, look. Someone invented a strawberry deseeder," and he'll have the credit card out, ready to go. In a normal world, this would be a dream come true: a boyfriend who wants to buy me presents. My own, personal enabler, folks. Pass me the Tiffany's catalog.

A couple of months ago I gave in and bought a mochi maker, which is basically a big rice steamer with a motor in the bottom. Mochi, if you remember, is Japanese for Squished Rice, which pretty much encompasses the phenomenon of mochi in a nutshell. Basically, you steam rice, you bash it into a pulp, and then you eat it.

For this, you need a machine. A machine that not only steams, but pounds. A rice cooker with strong groinal muscles. One that cracks the tile when it vibrates. "Why can't you just eat it without squashing it? What's the difference?"

Shut up.

Mochi isn't something I eat all that often. As a diabetic, it's fairly high on my list of no-nos. In the past, I ate mochi twice, maybe three times a year, and even with a mochi maker it wouldn't go up much higher than that. But that's not the point.

Buying a mochi maker is not easy. For some unfathomable reason, Americans apparently prefer to eat their rice unpalpated. I have to respect that, however irrational; these are the people who brought you Spam, after all, so you have to acknowledge that there are perfectly sound reasons for Americans not to trust anything mashed beyond recognition.

At the same time, there are enough Japanese folk scattered around the United States -- we don't like to collect in groups of more than 10. It attracts attention from authorities; you know what rabble-rousers the Japanese are -- that there's at least one or two web sites dedicated to the sale of rice makers and their bigger, lustier cousins. I tried visiting San Francisco's Japantown, but found little by way of satisfaction.

(Note: You can probably count on one hand the number of cities that have a "Japantown" as well as -- never "instead of" -- a "Chinatown." San Francisco's is mostly owned by Koreans, Chinese, and non-Japanese in general, which is an interesting payback for that whole Japan-Bought-Hawaii incident in the '80s, not to mention ... well, a decade of brutal occupation and oppression, but that's another topic altogether.)

The new mochi maker, when it arrived, prompted no little amount of comment from my coworkers, the majority of whom happened to be Chinese. Mochi is not unknown in Chinese cuisine, although it's apparently eaten dipped in sugar. In my mind, this is somewhat like eating chocolate cereal in orange juice: two basic food groups that should never mix.

"Why do you need a machine?" they asked. "Why don't you just use a mix?"

A mix? "Like, uh, Uncle Ben's?"

"It's a mix you get out of a box. Rice flour. You mix it with water."

I had to pause to take that in. "You mix rice flour with water to get ... mochi?"

"It's easier," they pointed out.

"Do you mix ice with heat to get water?" I demanded.

They blinked. "Yes."

"Never mind. Ignore that. That's not what I meant."

"It's cheaper."

"Shut up."

"Do you eat a lot of mochi?"

"Shut UP."

A few weeks later, I bought a crepe maker. Do I eat crepes? Sometimes. Do I like crepes? Sure. Do I make crepes? No. Have I ever made crepes? No. But now I might, with the Tibos Nonstick White Electric Crepe Maker. You'll notice that this is not a crepe pan, which would be unworthy of my consideration because it would: 1) not be a gadget; 2) not be electric; and 3) cost less. Besides, who would buy a pan over the Tibos Crepe Maker 9000? This fabulous device not only provides you with a flat, non-stick surface -- just like a pan -- it also allows you to evenly distrbute the batter (just like a pan) and cook it (just like a pan) and flip it (just like a pan) over controlled heat (just like a stove), then add fillings and serve. Just like a pan.

But here's the coup de grace. Unlike a pan, it comes with a handy dandy spreader device made out of wood! Not to mention a little wooden spatula that you use to flip the crepes. And, look! its own little ladle, perfectly sized for a small crepe. Isn't that worth $128.95 plus tax and shipping?

I've sworn off large purchases for a while. Before my vacation I made the mis...that is to say, I prudently sent away for my credit report, which appears to have -- hahah! -- some errors in it. I can't possibly owe that much money. Can I?

Here, why don't you read this catalog for culinary-direct.com while you wait. Don't mind the stain, that's just drool. I saw a really neat escargot smoker on page six....