I’ve always been a computer multitasker. Back when we were running unstable comupters at home (ie. Windows 95), my computer nerd brother Jason used to get so frustrated with me because he’d see eight programs sitting on my taskbar. At work, when Miriam briefly sat at my computer to open a file, she was boggled by the fifteen programs I had open. I alt-tab and control-T in my sleep.

I’m like an insatiable energy gorging monster alien. Every time humanity thinks it has defeated me by inventing more and more powerful computer processors, I just expand into the gap and add more programs to the taskbar. MUAHAHAHA!

However, now I have truly outdone myself. I’m at work running twelve, count ‘em, twelve computers in parallel. I’m modelling all the little air particles sitting above Tasmania. All the computers are connected to one monitor, one keyboard and one mouse. I use a fancy black box to switch between computers. It’s awesome. It’s more than I can handle. I find myself trying to alt-tab between computers. I can barely remember what each computer is doing. It doesn’t help that I’m blogging

On the cooking theme, yesterday at a bar, there was a brief yet vigorous discussion about whether or not rice cookers were the most pointless of inventions.

On one side of the ring, Tony, an Australian who had survived the trials of independent overseas living with no more than a saucepan, a stove and presumably some sort of rice-measuring device.

On the other side, six bewildered Asians who took some time to grasp the meaning of Tony’s challenge. (The point of a rice cooker? Huh? Whaddya mean… It cooks rice. What? Cook rice without a rice cooker? But that’s…that’s crazy talk.)

I went skiing last year with fifteen friends. At least half of us were Asian. Six days without a rice cooker was inconceivable. Witness the following email excerpt from Damjan (a European) in response to five earlier (deadly serious) emails negotiating whose responsbility it would be to bring a rice cooker to Mount Buller.

*Rice Cooker*

It seems a very bulky thing to bring.  However, we've got a big group soit might be worth bringing one for everyone to use.  Especially forthose addicted to rice.   *cough* Carlo *cough*

(Did I mention the bread has been invented??  It's cheap, easilyavailable, and requires no preparation!)

“Rice,” Tony insisted last night, “is the easiest of foods cook. Just put a cup of it in a saucepan, add two and a half cups or whatever of water and stick it on the stove. I get perfect rice every time. Who needs a rice cooker?”

Asians need rice cookers, apparently. So maybe there are some non-Asian rice cooking masters out there like Tony but too many times, I’ve had to chew Westernised rice that is too soggy, dry or some disconcerting combination of soggy rice punctuated with hard uncooked grains.

Wikipedia says:

The preparation of rice has traditionally been a tricky cooking process that requires accurate timing, and errors can result in inedible undercooked or burnt rice. Rice cookers aim to avoid these problems by automatically controlling the heat and timing in the preparation of the rice, while at the same time freeing up a heating element on the range. Although the rice cooker does not necessarily speed the cooking process, the cook’s involvement in cooking rice with a rice cooker is significantly reduced and simplified.

Let me conclude by asking:

• Can you cook rice on a stove, finish an hour early and keep the rice perfectly warm and fluffy until dinner time?
• Can you get children to cook rice on a stove?
• Can you prepare a dinner party for twenty by cooking ten cups of raw rice on a stove?
• Can you cook perfect rice every time when you are as clumsy and clueless in the kitchen as Joan is??

If you have answered “No” to any of these questions, your life would be much enriched by the purchase of a rice cooker.

Our rice cooker at home, which I plan to ask my parents for as a dowry when I am married off to a peasant farmer.

“I don’t know what to do for Father’s Day,” I lamented to Natalie during morning tea at work.

“Why don’t you make him something?”

I brightened. Yeah. Yeah! I could bake dad a cake. Dad likes chocolate. I’ll bake him a chocolate mud cake! With my lack of kitchen experience widely known, nothing would be more special than baking dad a cake from scratch.

On Saturday morning, I walked to the shops, clutching my internet print-out recipe. I managed to find everything except marsala. What’s marsala? Some kind of cheese, I suppose. Oh wait. I need two tablespoons of it. It must be a liquid. Maybe it’s a cream cheese.

I spent five minutes wandering up and down the dairy refrigerators, looking for something with the word ‘marsala’ in it. Nothing. Finally, I pulled out my mobile phone and called Damjan.

“Good morning, Damjan! I’m in the supermarket. I’m baking a cake for dad but I can’t find something called marsala. I think it’s a kind of cheese…”

“Marsala? [slight pause] It’s a wine. A sweet wine. Anything fortified will do.”

Wine??

I went home and read the recipe over lunch. To minimise my unco-ness, I memorised it. At 2:30 PM, I decided I was ready.

Slowly, I began chopping the chocolate. I mixed up the first stage batter. “Cook over simmering water”, it said. So I filled a wok with water then floated the pot in the simmering water.

I managed to go through the recipe without any mistakes and with no help from mum, who had run away from the kitchen so that she wouldn’t have to watch my clumsiness. I only had to ask her opinion once.

“Mum, I need three and a half eggs. What should I do?”

“…Just use four eggs.”

What kind of recipe asks for three and a half eggs, you ask? Well, the internet recipe required 262.5 mL of cream. Yet the bottle I bought contained 300 mL. I didn’t want to have 37.5 mL of cream left over. So I did the only logical thing. I increased all the quantities by 14% so that I could use all the cream. Which is why I needed 3.42 eggs.

The whole baking exercise took three hours. I went out in the evening, came back at 2:30 AM and complete the cake with frosting (“ganache“) and cocoa dusting. Then I had to wash the pots and pans. What can I say, it was a late night.

The next morning, I bounced out of bed. Proudly, I served dad a slice of mud cake garnished with strawberries. “Happy Father’s Day!” I said.

“That looks pretty good, Joan. Did you use all Home Brand ingredients?”

“Da-ad! Do you know I cost $99 an hour? This is an expensive cake!”

The cake turned out wonderfully. If you visit me before Tuesday, you can try a piece.

Joan’s recipe for rich chocolate mud cake

• 205 g butter
• 228 mL thickened cream
• 0.38 cup castor sugar
• 0.285 cup brown sugar
• 319 g dark chocolate, chopped
• 2.28 tsp instant coffee
• 2.28 tbsp Chinese ginger cooking wine (or marsala, if you must)
• 3.42 eggs
• 1.14 cup plain flour
• 0.57 cup self-raising flour
• 0.57 cup cocoa
• 171 g dark choclate, extra
• 0.285 cup thickened cream, extra
• extra cocoa for dusting
• strawberries for garnishing

1. Combine the butter, cream, sugars, chocolate, coffee and ginger wine in a heat proof bowl.
2. Cook over simmering water, stirring regularly until smooth.
3. Allow to cool completely. Wash the cooking tools.
4. Beat in the eggs and fold in the sifted flours and cocoa.
5. Pour into a buttered and lined pan about 14% bigger than a 22 cm pan, and bake for about 46 minutes in a fan-forced oven at 152°C.
6. Cool. Wash the cooking tools.
7. Combine the extra chcolate and cream in a heat proof bowl.
8. Cook over simmering water, stirring until smooth.
9. Refrigerate until cool.
10. Remove cake from oven. Cool. (I thought it was, anyway.)
11. Go out to a party. Come back nine hours later.
12. Take the ganache out of the fridge. Poke it. Realise you’ve stuffed up because the thing’s set. Put it in the microwave for 20 seconds to soften it.
13. Dust heavily with the cocoa in one corner. Try to spread the cocoa around the cake with a bread knife.
14. Wash the cooking tools.
15. Go to bed. I said, go to bed!

(Click here for the original recipe.)

It was almost dark when I stepped out of the train at Richmond station. I hoped I didn’t have to wait long for my connecting train. Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I saw something dark flying towards the train.

“THOCK!”

It rebounded off the train window. I looked down. It was a large rock, dark grey and angular. It was big. I wouldn’t have been able to wrap my hand around it.

“THOCK!”

I recoiled as another rock flew by. A man staggered past me. He stopped some distance ahead. He wound up his arm again and this time I saw him hurl another rock at the departing train, throwing his entire body forward in the effort. The train passengers inside ducked back away from the window.

Alert and alarmed, I walked casually towards the downward ramp. As soon as I passed the rock-thrower, I began jogging to the ticket barriers, where I knew there would be train staff.

“Excuse me,” I called to the two staff members as I approached thee exit. “There’s a gentleman on platform 5 and 6 throwing rocks at trains. They’re big rocks.”

“Really?! What does he look like?” asked the woman.

“He’s wearing a dark blue t-shirt with white writing on it. He’s got dark hair, I think.”

The male staff member began speaking rapidly into his radio. “There’s a man throwing rocks on platforms 5 and 6…”

I waited for a short while then looked back towards the platforms. And there he was, leaning against the wall about five metres away. The rock-thrower stared balefully at me. I stepped a little bit away from the people talking into radios.

“There he is,” I said in a low voice. The staff stopped talking and looked at the still man.

“That’s him?”

“I think so. Yes.”

The male staff member passed through the ticket barrier and walked up to the man. “Hey mate. Where are you going?”

The rock-thrower exploded into action. “I’m going home!” he shouted, stumbling away from the wall. “I wanna go home! I WANNA GO HOME!” He looked at me again then ran up the ramp.

The staff member whipped out the radio again. “He’s on platforms 3 and 4 now. We’ll need help…”

“Don’t worry,” said the woman. “We’ll take it from here.”

I nodded and walked backed to my train platform.