sweet convenience, sweet crock pot

So MP and I made an innocent trip to Target on Sunday. All she wanted was a hat. I was just along for the ride.

But Target seduced us with its sparkling kitchen accoutrements. As we wandered through the gadget aisles, I saw, illuminated by under-the-counter spotlights as by a ray from heaven, a crock pot. A red crock pot. A red crock pot on sale for seventeen dollars.

I ooed. MP saw and aahed. Of their own accord, our hands reached out and seized the boxes. We left Target balancing a crock pot under our arms.

"Now we just need a slow cooker cookbook," MP declared.

"...Wanna go to Borders?" I asked.

So we pilgrimaged to Borders and came away with NOT Your Mother's Slow Cooker Cookbook. I also bought 150 Best Slow Cooker Recipes.

I tried out my wonderful new kitchen companion yesterday with a recipe from my Mediterranean cookbook: Provencale Beef and Olive Daube. A gloriously fresh enormous cut of meat from the Farmer's Market, marinated in a simmered concoction of olive oil, red wine, onion, shallots, carrot and garlic, went into the pot. So did half a pound of bacon, half a pound of sliced Heirloom carrots (one of them was purple!), a can of stewed tomatoes, and two cups of black olives. I turned it on Low and went to work.

And came home to a delicious bubbling meal. MP came and partook. Afterward we sat about talking and knitting.

As she was putting on her shoes to leave, she glanced into my bedroom to see NOT Your Mother's Slow Cooker Cookbook on the floor by my bed.

"Are you reading this in bed too??" she demanded.

We laughed. "We really need to channel this into something that makes money," she said.

After she left, I tidied the house and got ready for bed, thinking about the marvel of the crock pot -- that I can have something to do my cooking for me. When I come home tired and hungry, there's dinner waiting on the counter, hot and ready to serve. I no longer have to spend my weekday evenings working two and a half hours to cook a meal, so that I eat at eight-thirty and then have to go straight to bed on a full stomach. Nor do I have to sit around making a meal of cheese and fried eggs, or whatever junk food I have lying around. Forget being a busy soccer mom -- this could be the saving grace for singles!

When I crawled under the covers, the kitchen was sparkling clean, all the dishes were put away, and the leftovers settled in the fridge.

I am turning into Betty Homemaker.

Now why won't someone marry me?