I am not a good cook. But I dream, or at least think about becoming a good cook some day. The problem is that I always think it’s going to happen overnight. Take for example, the Promise of the Crock Pot. I have friends who told me tales of wonderful meals, cooking themselves (I guess you have to put the stuff in there to begin with though) which are then waiting for you at the end of the day with very little effort on your part. So, when I came home with an eight-person monstrosity called a crock pot (a.k.a. slow cooker) my husband looked at me and said, well, I look forward to our first meal, not-so-secretly knowing it would be a while.
But one day I decided it was time. No more trying to decide what to cook at three p.m. No more ordering pizza or Chinese. I picked out a wonderful-sounding recipe called “Chicken and Rice Pacifica” which included chicken, soy sauce, bell peppers, and pineapple. The cookbook had pictures, and the meal looked wonderful. The ingredients weren’t elaborate, but to wash, cook and put them in the pot somehow took me an hour.
I felt unnecessarily guilty (like always) that I wasn’t spending quality time with my sixteen-month-old son Lucas. But he entertained himself most of the time by turning on and off the TV which I decided for that day was an OK activity.
I triumphantly put the ingredients into the pot, made a quick call to a friend to make sure I had set up the crock pot correctly, and turned it on. The house started to fill with a wonderful aroma. I began having visions of myself cooking every night and providing my family with wonderful balanced and healthy meals thanks to the crock pot. Maybe I’d win some award for best crock pot creation. Or at least for the best mom-and-cook (in the crock pot category). My sister called. I told her she needed a crock pot. A friend came over and visited. I was surprised when she said she didn’t use her crock pot. This was my new savior, I was going to tell all about the crock pot!
