How to prepare and serve rice in six simple steps

As per the back of my 10 kilo rice bag:

1. Be a housewife

2. Ratio of water:rice is 6:5 (1.2x). Get it right or else!!!

3.Soak for at least 1 hour

4. Watch your rice cooker go "poof poof poof"

5. Scoop your rice into a wooden rice basket (ohitsu)

6. Faithfully attend and serve your exhausted salaryman husband (after all, you're a housewife if you're preparing rice). He's happy!

Done! Everything is 大丈夫 (daijoubu-- meaning "OK"). I think the Kanji for that word are just hilarious, "great [or big] husband"-- indeed, everything is OK in the world. EDIT: my mom has informed me that it means 好汉, or a strong and morally upstanding man. Native speaker 1 million, me 0. When one refers to his own wife, he uses kanai 家内, or "inside the house." When one refers to someone else's wife, they use okusan 奥さん, which means "inside" and/or "serene" in classical Chinese, according to nciku (see the chinese dictionary section, not the first two dictionaries).

All this isn't to say that Japanese is more male-centric than other cultures or anything... I just thought the pictures on the rice bag were funny.

Had a great weekend, post to come later this week!