For more than thirty years the electric rice pot has been a fundamental part of my kitchen, and without Alice to prod me into cooking mixed grains, hot rice with avocado and chopped fresh herbs, and savory seasoned blends -- I'd still be cooking plain brown rice in it. Rice is a staple food for me, even more so now that we're living on gluten free diets, and with a rice pot bubbling away in the kitchen I don't have to worry about forgetting it's there and coming to my senses when I smell the smoke. When the rice is done the pot shifts to the warming cycle and waits for me. Eventually I remember to eat.

If only I had known, in the lean years when I lived out of a little travel trailer and cooked on a compact gas range with two square feet of counter space, that my little electric rice pot could have done so much more than cook rice. I'd have had quick one pot meals and one less pan to scrub. The wok could have spent a lot more time in the cabinet.

Since the rice cooker we use now is very likely to last another twenty years, I have plenty of time to think about what I might like to replace it with. The new rice cookers have all the dependability and simple basic functionality of the originals, but with options. Fitted with steamer baskets, clay cooking pots and computerized controls, the best of them fit oven and range top features into that two square feet of counter space I used to have.

This is not microwave cooking, zapped in one spot and frozen in another. Rice cookers make real food, in that set-and-forget sort of way that people with other things to do can really appreciate. Whether you cook for yourself in a tiny dorm room or for a family of ten in a spacious kitchen, there's a rice cooker built for you.

The basic rice cooker is extremely useful and very affordable -- about twenty five dollars for the Panasonic SRG06FG 3-Cup cooker. The non stick lining of the pot is vulnerable and typically begins to wear away after about a year. Even though it's called a cooker/steamer, there's no steaming function with this basic model. If you buy a steamer basket that will fit inside it, you can put a little water in the bottom of the pot, put vegetables or seafood in the basket, and click the cooker on. When the water evaporates the pot will turn off. Panasonic measures capacity by dry rice cups, so this cooker will provide a maximum of six cups of cooked rice.

Black and Decker's RC3406 does include a steamer basket. This six cup model is rated by cooked rice cups, so the maximum yield should be about the same as the Panasonic SRG06FG. The pot is non-stick and lined with Teflon, so the same rules apply about not using anything but wood or plastic utensils with it and avoiding abrasive cleaners and scrubbing pads.

The Aroma ARC-733G 3-Cup cooker is about as simple as rice pots get today. The pot is plain aluminum so there's no concern about losing the non-stick lining. A wire steaming basket is included. Complaints that new owners may have will apply equally well to all cookers of this style. They do tend to bubble and boil over, and the pots are not dishwasher safe. If you run the pots through a dishwasher you'll wind up with pitted pots. Rice at the bottom of the pans does scorch and in a plain aluminum pot seems permanently bonded to the metal. For simple solutions to these problems see my article about cooking rice in electric rice pots.

Zojirushi is now the big name in the rice cooker biz. What the simple rice cooker was to the overflowing pan on the stove, the Fuzzy Logic Cooker is to the electric rice pot. It's better. It's a little more complicated but that's all for the good. Many people simply do not like the browned layer at the bottom of the pan that is standard fare with the old electric rice pot. The micro-computerized Zojirushi eliminates that scorched layer.

Select the type of rice you will cook, fill the pot to the precise level needed for that variety of rice, and select the setting from the menu buttons. Come back when the rice is done. Zojirushi cookers take a little longer to produce rice but aren't plagued by the bubbling overflow and browning issues of standard cookers. Setting the cooking timer manually allows the Zojirushi to slow cook soups and stews, a little like the electric crockpots Americans know so well.

The pot itself is the weak point, and to keep it in good shape always wash it by hand. Protect the non stick finish by not using abrasive cleaners or metal tools on the pot. Replacement pots are expensive.

Vitaclay offers a blend of crockpot and rice cooker designs. Instead of the usual aluminum or teflon coated aluminum pot, Vitaclay cookers include clay pots fired from Chinese Zisha clay. This material has been used for cooking pots for centuries. Slightly porous, the mineral rich clay heats evenly and mysteriously contributes to flavor. Vitaclay's cookers include an improved heating cycle which brings the pot's contents quickly to a boil and then reduces to a slow simmer. There are pre-programmed timer settings for white and brown rice, soup and stew. The cooking timer can be adjusted for a custom setting from thirty minutes to twelve hours, but there's no option for a preset delayed start with the six cup 2-in-1 Rice-N-Slow. The fully programmable VF7900-4 Chef Gourmet has the same convenient preset options plus delayed start.

If you plan to cook with clay pots, be careful. The pots are very breakable. Since the clay is porous and may retain moisture, make sure they are dry before you put them away and don't store them with the lids on.

If you want stainless steel, you need to shop carefully. Lots of stainless steel rice cookers have the same teflon lined aluminum pots as the less expensive models, so read the fine print. The Miracle ME81 actually goes the distance, with not only a stainless steel pot but a stainless steel steamer that goes on top. The Miracle does not offer the fancy computerized settings or high tech induction heating of the Zojirushi, but if you're willing to think a bit and pay attention to your cooking, as most of us used to do, you and the Miracle ME81 will get along just fine.

Sunpentown is another possibility, but it's not quite a standard rice cooker. Model SC-889 and SC-886 offer all stainless construction, including the inner pots. Sunpentown cooks with steam, however--you control cooking time by adding water between the inner liner and the cooking pot. Although this seems like a fine idea and the company claims it works not just for rice but for vegetables and meats, it obviously has a learning curve to it. Until you learn the system it will not be a one-click meal.

Cooking under slightly pressurized conditions actually raises the boiling point, so foods simmer at hotter temperatures without losing flavor and nutrition. That can be a big help at high altitudes, so if you live in the mountains a pressure cooker is a great idea. But, the old style pressure cookers with the heavy metal clamp on lids and the dancing metal valves can be pretty spooky. Every time you fire one up, you get a little nervous.

These modern pressure cookers are relatively low pressure devices with plenty of safety features. The Sanyo ECJ-PX50S is the simplest, with one lightly pressurized setting plus the regular rice cooking function and a slow cooking option for soups and stews. Controls are straightforward and there's plenty of customization possible. You can load the pot before you go to work and set the machine to have supper ready when you come home. Sanyo includes simple instructions for nine types of rice.

The Fagor 3-in-1 Multi-Cooker offers both 5 psi and 9 psi pressure settings, with reduced cooking times of up to 70 percent. Steamed rice is ready to eat in just six minutes. Delayed starts of up to 9 1/2 hours, keep-warm mode, and a slow cooking crockpot option increase the cooker's convenience levels. Dual safety valves and pressure locks make the pressure cooking cycles worry free.

Once again at the top of the ladder, Zojirushi's HTC-10 goes several steps farther than the competition. Induction heating, three pushbutton activated pressure levels, and a vacuum insulated inner pot give complete control of rice texture no matter which variety you prefer. There's even a setting for "activated brown rice" which brings the rice and water to 104 degrees for two hours, allowing the living grains to activate their sprouting cycle before cooking actually begins. While this is officially a rice cooker and warmer, and not a do-everything kitchen machine, creative chefs can certainly expand the applications beyond the basic rice recipes the manual includes.

Most rice cookers come with either a recipe book or a few pages of instructional samples in the manual, but for more creative ideas there are plenty of good rice cooker recipe books around. Soups and stews are easy, but steaming vegetables and meats will take some experimentation. The less expensive rice pots work on a very simple principle and if you know it, you can tweak it. The heating element brings the contents of the pot to a boil and simmers it until the water has either been absorbed into the food or evaporated. Then the temperature begins to rise above the boiling point and a thermostat turns the cooker off. If there's an automatic warming cycle it will keep the food hot until the cooker is unplugged.

So, if you have a steamer basket, you can put a measured amount of water in the pot and time how long the pot runs before turning off. Reduce the water amount and the pot will steam for a shorter period. Add more water and it will run longer. Amounts and cooking times for different foods are something you will have to learn by experimentation.

The rice cooker/slow cooker machines are very versatile and much easier to control. The fully programmable machines offer preset options and marked measurements for a selection of rices, but you'll have to learn the controls to take advantage of advanced recipes.