Our buddy Marisa Baggett, who wrote the book on vegetarian sushi, told us that to make really great sushi rice, we needed a rice cooker. We trust her on that, so we started thinking about it. And then Andrew Adams of Acre here in Memphis recently said that a rice cooker is the one kitchen gadget that changed his life in the kitchen. (Andrew knows a lot about kitchen tools and toys. I mean, that guy has four immersion circulators, so we have to believe him 100% when he tells us something so definitive.)

So, we started researching and found that you can spend anywhere from $30 to $300 bucks or more to buy a rice cooker on Amazon. We wanted a newfangled digital model that would set the timing and temperature for us, but we didn't want a non-stick coating that can chip and scratch on the inner bowl.
After trying out a few different models, we've found a rice cooker that we love at a good price! It's the Vita Clay 2-in-1 Rice N' Slow Cooker. Instead of a nonstick-lined metal bowl, the Vita Clay has an unglazed natural clay bowl. We've used it for sushi rice for our usual at-home Valentine's Day dinner tradition and for mushroom chili with brown rice so far, and it's going to be a game-changer.

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