My little rice steamer is 20 years old. I use it often. I think I might have a fit if it broke. I don't like the looks of the new ones at all.

this is why we needed the rice cooker working...Blue Runner beans and Italian sausage and Crystal Hot sauce...yum... and home made corn bread with buttermilk...on the front porch. Ours is at least 20 yrs also Breezy...and you are right..the new ones are suspect.

We've had our rice cooker for about 23 years. My DH would have a heart attack too if it broke. We'll keep the beer caps away!

Here's funny rice cooker story. I work in i/t for a financial services company. Many years ago one of my old bosses was Filipino. One day were were in a meeting evaluating some proposals for a new mainframe system. We had Hitachi and IBM on the table. There were multi-million dollars systems. And he says "I think we should go Hitachi. My rice cooker is Hitachi and I use it every day and it has never gone down". We ended up with IBM and whenever there was the slightest problem or issue, he would say "well, my rice cooker is still running!".

Mine is a National :)

Mine's a National, too. Have had it for ~19-20 years (I used to tutor a Japanese family and they took me to a Japanese market in NJ where I purchased it). I don't use it daily (or even weekly or monthly) but it works great when I need it!

I've never had a rice cooker but trailrunner that dinner looks very good...do you want to share the recipe?

marcy DH had a great laugh over that...used to be an IBM guy !!

cat we use ours a couple times a week for over 20 yrs....still is perfect. maybe this thread should be on appliances...they have these crazy threads about rice cookers every so often....want to spend $$$$ and get inferior stuff....go cheap at an import store and have a great cooker. that is my idea. c

I love my little rice cooker, though it's not all that pretty to look at. It's only 16 yrs old and still going strong. And DH is an IBMer, so the mainframe question would never have even been considered.

boy ..it is easy peasy. We use canned Blue Runner Beans ( Gonzales LA) ...that is the real secret. You have to have red beans...not kidney beans. New Orleans style. We add a small amount of chopped red onion and bell pepper and celery...this is the holy trinity of New Orleans cookin. we add a couple cloves of garlic minced also. Saute in olive oil. Add to beans along with a bay leaf and a pinch of thyme. Simmer while you brown 2 Italian sausages. We like andouille as a flavor agent...but you have to get the real thing from La Place LA. Add the sausage drippings to the beans and serve over rice. French bread is also a good thing to have but I hadn't made any of that and we can't get the good stuff up here in AL. If you can't find Blue Runner...which you likely won't be able to do then Bush's red beans are OK. You need to puree half to get some gravy in the pan. Does any of this make sense ??? send me an email if you want more help...c