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]

"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.