I'm not sure where the idea came from. I didn't really come from a tradition of slow cooking. Sure, my mother had a crockery cooker- it was a mid-1970s model, dark brown and lemon yellow, but though I would learn that she dabbled briefly in the art of slow cooking, mostly I remember that device as a means to keep the mashed potatoes warm at Thanksgiving. Mom always preferred her trusty pressure cooker anyways, an old wedding gift so reliable she only reluctantly retired it over thirty-five years later when she could no longer find replacement stoppers for it.

I'm not sure where the idea came from. Growing up, it wasn't like soups and stews were my favorite. It had nothing to do with Mom's pressure cooking skills, she was a master of beer stew and peerless when it came to corned beef, but these were dishes and flavors I didn't really warm up to until I was a teenager. As for soups, it was years later and through exposure via Amelia's formidable array of soup recipes before I warmed up to the idea of a dinner bowl not filled with either pasta or salad. Of course, that revelation is irrelevant because it postdates when I bought my own crocker.

I'm not sure where the idea came from. I know that for some reason, I was starting to enjoy chili more than I had when I was younger, but now it seems to me a stretch to suggest that was more than a supporting role in the decision. But I was in the mood to buy kitchen appliances. I was out of college. I got a real job. I had one foot out of my parent's attic, and I figured that when I got around to moving the other foot, I would need to cook. On top of that, the economics of the day saw several retail shops offering housewares staging simultaneous going-out-of-business sales. I needed stuff. They had stuff cheap. I picked up thirty-two assorted plates and bowls for something like eight bucks. Knife set? I think it was ten. Fajita pan I still haven't used? I may use it someday. Suitcase bar? Great for parties...

In my scramble to purchase items for the kitchen, I came across some crockpots at 75% off. "Crockpots", I thought, "I could cook things in them...slowly." At that point in my life I had probably only thought about slow cooking a total of maybe forty-five minutes. That's forty-five minutes over twenty-three years. Let's just say I didn't study it in school. Yet, for some reason the idea of slow cooking, which I must remind you was a manner pretty much unfamiliar to me, was irresistible. I could have things cooking while I do other things. Besides, crockpots were 75% off. If I decided to buy it later, it could be too expensive! Who cares if the only models left had Grandma-Style floral patterns on the side, I don't have time to learn that plain white models are available. Besides, I can always spray-paint it later, right? Into the cart it goes! Cashier, ring me up, it's crocker time!

So, at the young age of twenty-three, with no actual kitchen to call my own, I purchased a cooking apparatus I had no experience with, that was decorated in a style generally associated with middle-aged women. At this point most people would probably explain that yes, they were doing a lot of drugs at the time, but I have no such excuse to fall back on. I guess I could say that the only drug I was on was stupidity, but the slow cooker turned out to be a really good purchase, better than most of the other seven or so mid-major appliances I bought during my kitchen spree. If I have a regret, it's the floral pattern. Most of the time, I people have fun at my expense for things I feel are not fair, but in this case, I don't catch enough flak for not waiting until I found a nice, plain model. Well, maybe I can spray paint it or something.

Essentially, the reasons why I bought the slow cooker in the first place still hold true today. I was looking for a way to provide a hot, decent meal that didn't require a ton of time in the kitchen or in front of the stove. Ideally, it would be something that I could put together quickly, then go do something else for awhile, and then have a good meal when I got home. The specific scenario that played in my head back when I bought the crockery cooker was a cold winter weekend, where when I woke up, I slapped some stuff together in a pot, went and ran some errands, and when I got back, there would be food ready. Granted, in the same scenario, I could probably have microwaved something when I got back, but frankly, microwaved stuff for the most part isn't food that I look forward to eating. Having a stew or chili ready seemed more like a real meal to me.

Though now equipped and capable of crockery cooking at any moment, I didn't get a lot of use out of the slow cooker the first year or two I had it. I used it I think once or twice, but mostly I talked a good game about how when the weather gets cold again I was going to fire up the crocker and there would be real food. The problem? By not coming from a crockery cooking tradition, I didn't really have a lot of recipes for it. Though I wanted to make chili, I didn't really know what to put in it. Pretty much, all I had was a version of my Mom's pressure-cooked beer stew, adapted for crockery use, but I couldn't get it to taste like Mom's, mostly because I drink darker beer while Mom and Dad drink Coors. It was another situation ready-made for Amelia to bail me out of, which she did with a timely slow cooker recipe book for my birthday. So that's what one puts in chili. Using those recipes as a starting point, as well as others I would come across, I actually started to build an ability to slow cook several different dishes.

Though now equipped and capable of crockery cooking, and armed with at least a handful of recipes, I was all set. Except for really needing to slow cook, that is. Though fun on a slow winter weekend or the occasional mid-week meal, the crockpot was mostly just a fun diversion and convenient way to make dinner every once in awhile. I'd go through spurts over the course of the next year or so. I'd use it once or twice a month, then forget about it for a month or two, then come back to it, then ignore it in summer even though there was no real reason to. Of course, the whole time I was mulling over something of a personal-level business problem, and it took too long for me to realize in crockery cooking lay part of the solution. I don't know where the idea came from.

The story continues in the next installment of "It's a Crocker!". Click here for Part Two.