Caring for my crock-pot
I made pulled chicken in my crock-pot this afternoon. I’m very sensitive to textures, so chewing meats for too long grosses me out. Pulled anything is best, and chicken is easiest, so here we are.
The only downside to crock-pot usage is the clean-up. The ceramic portion of the crock-pot is heavy, and the sides are very thick, so it’s difficult to hold on to, especially while wearing rubber gloves and sponging dish soap everywhere.
As I washed this behemoth, I was consumed by the thought I might fumble it, and it would crash down into the sink and break into two halves, and my crock-pot would be ruined.
My ex-boyfriend’s parents gave it to me for a birthday, I think, or possibly for Christmas. The saga began innocently enough when they complained that for their wedding they’d been given multiple crock-pots, which they’d found outrageous, and which had been stored unused ever since — we’re talking 40 years, here — in their attic. But how much could crock-pot technology have changed since the 70s? It’s a metal cannister plus heating element with a large ceramic tureen inside.
I’m not great at the kind of cooking where you have to do the steps in a certain order, but I’m really dandy at the kind that involves piling a whole bunch of ingredients into an implement all at the same time, acting on those ingredients in some way, and emerging with a viable food product. That’s why I’m fantastic at smoothies and pretty darn good at sauces (meat sauce, apple sauce, tomato sauce, you name it), and why I longed for a crock-pot. It would enable me to shovel yet more ingredients into a single vessel, while paying less attention to the cooking process, and yet deriving from that equation a higher volume of food. Say whaaaat?
So each time the crock-pot-wedding-gift story arose, I mentioned casually that if they ever wanted to get rid of one of those crock-pots, their son (who for years didn’t even have a stove in his apartment) and I would gladly take it off their hands. You can have it, they said. Take them all. But it’s awkward to bring the conversation around to the fulfillment of the offer. It’s like when your friend says, “Can I borrow five bucks? I’ll pay you back tomorrow.” And you say, “Sure.” It’s really hard to then say to your friend, “Hey, remember when you said you’d pay me back? Do you have that five dollars by any chance?” You’re going to seem petty. You’re going to seem even more petty if you do that about something that didn’t belong to you in the first place…to your boyfriend’s parents.
So the conversation just kept happening. And I still didn’t have a crock-pot.
Then one day, then-boyfriend’s parents were packing to go on a trip, and it turned out the luggage was stored in the attic, which was therefore momentarily accessible. This was my chance: I nudged then-boyfriend about the mythical crock-pots.
It’s a function of my personality: When I get an idea in my head, it’s like I’m on a mission. I might not always be thinking about that idea, but I am always ready to think about that idea. That idea is always lurking there in the shadows, ready to rush to the fore at a moment’s notice. So when I realized the attic was shall we say available, the oft-repeated crockpot idea was all I could think about.
Then-boyfriend, however, when I prodded him, did not want to bring the subject up. He was never keen on “making trouble.”
Now, to me, asking your own parents if you can have something they complain they have too many of and have never ever used in 40 years — that doesn’t seem like making trouble. But I also thought it pretty reasonable to ask your landlord to turn on the heat in the dead of winter for Christ’s sake, and I basically had to threaten then-boyfriend into doing that, so.
But anyway: He pushed back. Being on a mission as I was, though, I was not deterred, and eventually, I convinced him to ask. And whaddya know? We were given free reign to divest his parents of all the crock-pots we could find, and in minutes were on our way to the attic.
Unfortunately, the number of crock-pots we were able to find was zero.
Maybe the crock-pot story had been an exaggeration from the start. Or maybe they’d given the crock-pots away over the years to other of their children’s partners and had simply blocked out those memories. Whatever the case, we returned from the attic empty-handed. There was general consternation, and afterwards I continued making small batches of grilled chicken, which is fine, but still a little chewy for my tastes.
Now, you might be asking yourself, “Why don’t you just buy a crock-pot for yourself? I gurantee they’ve got one in the Macy’s home section.” You’re probably right, but the 34th Street Macy’s with its floor of perfumes you’ve got to survive before you can get anywhere else; those wooden escalators too narrow to fit two people, so you’re stuck just standing there, being lowered at the speed of molasses down through the many circles of hell; an expansiveness that means you can stand in the middle of the store and encounter not one exit sign as far as the eye can see — that whole experience is my worst nightmare, so I’d never buy one there, even if I had the funds. Which I don’t. Because I owe more than $100,000 in student loans, and any “disposable income” I might otherwise have goes to Navient and the federal government.
So I’m not buying myself crock-pots, people. Because I really don’t need one. They’re just a nice-to-have. Because pulled chicken is the best chicken and chili is the best of the chili-like-things.
But then, very generously and to my surprise, then-boyfriend’s parents bought me a new crock-pot. And yes, I remember now — it was for my birthday.
The first thing I made for then-boyfriend and myself was pulled pesto chicken pasta. I rarely photograph the food I make, but on that occasion I was too pleased with the outcome not to. It’s important to photograph my 100%-ordinary crock-pot creations because they’re momentous and empowering — all the more so for the fact that so little cooking is involved, that I am able to use my time to do something other than cooking and still eat food at the end!
I’m afraid of breaking the crock-pot not because it has some sentimental value — then-boyfriend’s parents weren’t very sentimental, and I’m not trying to hold on to the relationship — but because it’s fucking magical, and I’m distressed at the thought of not having a crock-pot anymore.
Though I’ve successfully scrubbed and rinsed the ceramic dish, and placed it safely on the drying rack, there’s still the drying to be navigated. And if I leave it to dry on its own, I worry my roommate with accidentally hit it on the counter while attempting to put it away, or he’ll balance it on the edge of the sink, trying to get to the dishes under it, and it’ll smash into eighteen pieces on the floor.
It’s a lot of emotional work, caring for your crock-pot. But you know what? It’s worth it.
