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Today we’ve got another episode of our “Reviewing the Reviewer” series, where we ask our reviewers questions about their backgrounds and gear preferences to give you a more complete picture of the people behind our reviews. And since we like to rank & review things around here, we also give a score to each of our reviewers’ answers, then come up with a cumulative review grade for each of them.
In the hot seat today is bike reviewer, Zack Henderson. But in addition to mountain biking and gravel riding, Zack is also a snowboarder and a skier, so our conversation is almost equal parts bike, board, and ski talk. We start the episode by remembering our friend and fellow reviewer, Eric Freson.
RELATED LINKS:
Pre-Order: Our 24/25 Winter Buyer’s Guide
Become a Member: BLISTER+
TOPICS & TIMES
Zack’s background / sports did you play growing up? (7:40)
Where’d You Go to School & Why? (11:12)
How did you first get connected with Blister? (15:42)
Zack’s bike, ski, & snowboard, gravel bike preferences (18:31)
Who is your favorite reviewer at Blister? (40:12)
Who is your favorite pro mtn biker, pro skier, pro snowboarder? (41:17)
What’s the stupidest thing you’ve ever done? (51:21)
What gear are you most picky about? (54:35)
What gear are you least picky about? (57:21)
Best Crash or Close Call Story? (59:35)
Top 3 favorite books, movies, and musicians (1:02:54)
Give us a random review (1:06:39)
What’s the best question I haven’t asked you? (1:12:35)
CHECK OUT OUR OTHER PODCASTS (click each to learn more):
Leaving a comment about rice on a gear review website wasn’t on my list of things to do for 2024 but here we are.
Zack, if you’re not cooking with Japanese rice yet, you have to start. Genuinely a game-changer. It’s $0.99/lb on Weee (online Asian supermarket) – just six cents more expensive than the cheapest option at Walmart. Best value upgrade on anything I’ve ever gotten in my life.
True symbiosis in action — I provide gear reviews, you provide rice recs. It’s also rather helpful to be able to show Jonathan that I’m not alone in my appreciation of quality staple foods.
“Leaving a comment about rice on a gear review website wasn’t on my list of things to do for 2024 but here we are.” This is great. One never knows where these conversations will lead us.
As a proud, card-carrying member of the Rice Superiority Society, I would like to lodge a formal complaint regarding Jonathan’s obviously blasphemous aspersions of rice being “boring.” I will not stand for such heretical beliefs.
On a more serious note, Asian rice cooker technology is seriously leaps and bounds ahead of the cheap crap that seems to be super common in the US. The cheap stuff will burn the bottom, soggify the middle, and dry out the top, for some unholy melange of ghastly textures for rice and utterly obliterate the natural aroma the rice has. For just good baseline rice, Zojirushi, Panasonic, Cuckoo, and Tiger are some brands that rarely do worse than good, and often exceed it. Increasing price tiers are usually paying for some features (like keeping rice at optimally warm temperatures for extended periods), as well as being capable of cooking larger quantities.
You can think of a good rice cooker kind of like a good coffee setup. It enables you to bring out the best aesthetic, aroma, taste, and texture of the grain that you have chosen. You don’t have to limit yourself to just cooking any one type of rice (try brown, white and black/purple rice), or even just one type of grain (farro and rice), or even just one cooking liquid (vegetable stock, reconstituted dried shiitake mushroom liquid, chicken stock, etc.). Want something more soupy? Put in much more liquid to make congee, and extend the cook time (easier on the stove top, if I’m being honest though). Want the Chinese ideal of being able to texturally separate each grain of rice? Try putting a little less water for the cook, or use a rice varietal that doesn’t absorb water as easily. Want fluffier rice? After washing the rice, try soaking the rice for a period of time before cooking.
As a fun fact, there is a Zojirushi restaurant in Tokyo Station where you can have unlimited refills of rice with differing textures and stickiness (obviously made by their rice cookers), accompanied by small plates of traditional Japanese dishes. While I can’t say I prefer that style of rice, it was certainly a novel experience. You can also buy most Zojirushi kitchenware there.
Aaron, you really get me. You *knew* that all you had to do was make the comparison to a good coffee setup. I can now definitely imagine dedicating at least a few CRAFTED episodes to rice & rice cookery.
I think an episode of “Gear Therapy” (client J.E.) was accidentally put in as “Reviewing the Reviewer”
Ha, pretty much true. Or … maybe we created a new cross-over series: “Reviewing the Gear Therapist”
Zack – we rode a few times back in the day in the Oakland hills. Funny to see your name pop up on Blister! Small world. And yes the rice cooking gear does matter.