The more attention I put to what I eat, the more important I find it to living a healthy, fulfilling, satisfying life.

I wrote before about my rice cooker / vegetable steamer / miracle appliance, the Hitachi Chime-o-matic. I normally don’t promote products, but it’s so useful, I do with it. An old college friend visited over the summer, saw it, and asked if it’s the same rice cooker I had in college. It is, meaning I bought it in 1990 and it still works.

Now there is a contender to beat it. I bought an electric pressure cooker. Here’s the one I got, the Cuisinart CPC-600:So far I only cooked two dishes in it, but it did great. It cooked a head of cauliflower in two minutes (!!), not counting warm up time. It cooked beans in twenty-four minutes, to perfection. Actually, not just beans, but beans plus vegetables from my farm share, which included bok choy, radish greens, and probably more vegetables. They tasted delicious, like a stew that simmered for hours, but it hardly took any.

It cooked a delicious, nutritious, low-cost meal using less energy than any other way I knew.

I wish I had looked into pressure cookers before. My grandmother used hers all the time. I can’t wait to use it more.

• ← My odd race story
• The problem with “We need more women leaders / in tech / in STEM fields / etc” →