"CrockPotCookbook" news and stories

I couldn't believe it. I walked into Powell's Books for Cooks here in Portland, Ore. and scanned the "appliances" shelves. Fondue books took up most of the room - there was nothing on Crock Pots! What gives?

I wandered down the aisle in disgust. And then I saw it. The holy grail. Casserole & One-Dish, the label read. And there was shelf, after shelf, after shelf - hundreds of titles, everything from $3 70s paperbacks to glossy hard-backed coffee table-style tomes.

I picked up Family Circle Casserole Cookery and flipped through the pages. I almost bought it, but it was all cans of this and margarine in that... ick. I opened, and discarded, several glossy, formulaic titles with SLOW COOKER in all caps. Two stood out from the crowd: Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Cookbook, a huge one with 350 recipes, everything from breakfast to several kinds of pot roast to dessert; and a slimmer option, The Gourmet Slow Cooker.

Even though it was smaller and more expensive, I was immediately charmed by the style and selection of The Gourmet Slow Cooker. Author Lynn Alley started out talking about the Midas Feast, the first known example of a one-pot meal, analyzed from an archaelogical site in Turkey. Her first recipe? An interpretation of Midas' funereal meal. Her focus is on classic meals, from Provencal beef stew to Dublin Coddle to Chicken Mole to yes, Boston Baked Beans.

I'm now cooking my second dish (Neapolitan Lamb Stew), and I love her simplicity, her lovely photography, and her careful selection of good slow cooking staples. I'd suggest either book, though, depending on whether you're looking for a comprehensive slow cooker bible or a more carefully culled book.

[Photo Sarah Gilbert]