"I want a crock pot!" says the woman who's checking me out at the thrift store, eagerly. Later, I'm shopping for a slow cooking recipe book and am surprised to see five shelves in Powell's Books for Cooks devoted to the subject. "Do you have a slow cooker?" asks the clerk after I make my selection. I tell her I've just purchased one. "I need one, too!"

Today, it seems, everyone's into slow cooking. I head to my favorite gourmet market and there, next to the fabulously shiny stainless steel cookware and in front of the organic local produce is a sexy All-Clad slow cooker. I try to find a price tag, and when I can't, figure it's a sign from the heavens: stick with your thrift store purchase, sweetie. I have to go to the supermarket for a few things, and there's an end-of-aisle display of much lower-priced slow cookers.

When we set out to do a theme day around slow cooking, few of us even could define it. Now, we're all hooked, as Crock Pots bubble in our kitchens and beans bake for hours and hours at 300 degrees. For the record: slow cooking is any method of cookery that combines low heat and long periods of time, usually without requiring much attention. Often, slow-cooked meals are begun a day or two before they're meant to be eaten.

Why is slow cooking so popular, now, a good thirty-five years since it became vogue with the introduction of the Crock Pot? It's because it brings back the soul to cooking.

You leave the house in the dark. You come home in the dark. It's winter, and you yearn for a lovingly-cooked meal. Why not have it ready when you get home? Why not fill your house with the rustic aromas of slow cookery?

But I have a job, or, at least a life, I can hear you murmuring to yourself, shaking your head. I don't have a personal chef. I'll just throw a Lean Cuisine in the oven.

No! Stop! Put away that freezer meal. Freezers are for summer, when you eat ice cream and whir up smoothies with fresh fruit and yogurt. Winter is for slow cookers, for Crock-Pots and baking at low, low heat and, oh, the bountiful braise. Monday, January 23, we'll be celebrating all that is slow - all our recipes will cook at low heats for several hours. Nearly all of them can be mixed early in your day and set cooking, and the flavors will combine throughout the afternoon as the dish gets more, and more, and more tender, until it is meltingly delectable, until it sings on your tongue.

Classic slow-cooked meals were invented long before the Crock-Pot trademark was ever registered. Dishes like cassoulet and baked beans and Beef Bourguignonne hearken from centuries ago. Once, everything was cooked slow. We honor our culinary heritage. We long for food that has nothing "fast" about it.