True oatmeal aficionados know steel-cut oats are the way to go. Their chewy texture and nutty flavor make run-of-the-mill rolled oats taste like mush. Besides, that old style tin of McCann’s Irish oats looks great on the shelf.

But who can spare half an hour to make steel cut oats in the morning? McCann’s offers helpful shortcuts, but they omit the very best one: the fuzzy logic rice cooker.

We bought ours to make sushi rice, but we’ve discovered the joys of waking up to a ready-made batch of perfectly cooked steel-cut oats (not to mention corn grits.) You just put the oats and water in the rice cooker the night before, set the timer, and wake up to the wonderful aroma of oatmeal.

There’s still a place in our pantry for old-fashioned Quaker Oats, essential for oatmeal cookies. I even use them in meatloaf. But I still can’t figure out what to do with the instant Quaker Oats I once bought by mistake; there’s no gratification in that kind of instant.