What a Crock

So when Husband and I got engaged, we partook in the time-honored tradition of gift-grubbing, I mean, registering for a variety of house-hold goods, the vast majority of which, we neither needed nor had the space for. (By the way, could I have more hyphenated words in that sentence?)

Something came over me when as we walked through the aisles of Bed, Bath and Beyond. Maybe it was the heady power of toting the sku-gun (another hyphen!) or the shiney, shiney small appliances, but something akin to a really out of control sugar rush, or a dose of terbutaline (remember those??!) came over me and I suddenly needed one of everything, and it all needed to be stainless steel. Mini-food processor, cooking utensils and holder, measuring cups. I became a simple, simple girl who just wanted shiney stuff. And shiney stuff I got.

One of the shiney gifts Husband and I received was a crock pot. Neither of us knew a thing about cooking in a crock pot--is it called 'crock pottery'? I don't know. I'd never used one. I have no idea why I registered for one. The combination of the glinting stainless steel finish and the desire to channel a "short cut" version of June Cleaver in my new identity as wife? Who knows. There was something intriguing about throwing a bunch of ingredients into a pot, pressing a button and then coming back 12 hours later to...a meal. Isn't that just one step away from putting a little pill on a plate, wetting it with three drops of water and having an entire meal just sprout up before your eyes? That only happens in cartoons, but a crock pot! That's real life!

So after countless trips to the "pre-prepared meal" and sushi sections of our local Whole Foods, I decided enough was enough. I was never going to channel June Cleaver with these yuppy urban habits of mine. Something had to change.

Out comes the crock pot...and in goes a big chunk of meat. Meat and potatoes and carrots and mushrooms and celery and onion. There was some confusion about the whole "coat the meat in flour and brown it" segment of the directions...a giant pot roast looks pretty stupid in a frying pan; and then there's the issue of how do you turn a big old slab of meat like that without spattering fat all over the place? Spatulas seem inadequate.

And how do you coat a big old hunk of meat with flour? I think I might have channelled Lucille Ball more than June Cleaver. I realize now that perhaps I should have taken the roast out of the frying pan and rolled it around in the flour, but instead I sort of tossed flour on the roast as it sat in the pan, then rolled it over a little with the aforementioned inadequate spatula and tossed more flour on it. There was a lot of flour flying in my kitchen this morning at 8:30. And I noticed that flour and beef juice makes a glue that is really hard to dig out from under your fingernails. Good times...

And so we wait. For pot roast or the pizza delivery guy...