Crock Pots

Last week, for lunch and dinner, we ate beef stew. Not crappy Dinty Moore Grade D Beef Stew. We ate homemade, slow-cooked, melt-in-your-mouth beef stew. A stew that cows willingly give up their lives to participate in. One that could stand up as the model for which proper beef stews should be judged. So good that, if I learned halfway though the batch it was made from people, I would finish it, though grudgingly, and bring flowers of thanksgiving to the graves of the deliciously departed.

Crock pots are the lazy cooks answer to culinary school and talent. Slow cooking is like a flavor multiplier. It takes a modicum of prep time and simple ingredients and transforms them over a long period of time into stellar results. The rule seems to be, if you can't cook it well, cook it a long time.

I think we're making chili next. You're all invited.