Slow-cookers are getting hot

Liz Kaplan is a professionally trained chef who's cooked up years of experience in European and Minneapolis restaurants. These days she's steering customers to locally raised cuts of meat in a Linden Hills butcher shop.

Not exactly the kind of person you'd expect to cook with a Crock-Pot, but like other chefs, foodies and kitchen connoisseurs, the lure of the slow cooker became too enticing for Kaplan to ignore.

"I like it because we're a working couple," Kaplan said. "We can start something in the morning and come home in the evening to a nice dinner. ... My favorite is pork hock with beans."

The slow cooker has experienced a resurgence of popularity in recent years. In 2009, about 83 percent of American households owned a slow cooker, according to the NPD Group, a market research firm. Today, 16.4 percent of U.S. homes use a slow cooker at least once every two weeks, a steady rise since 1998 when 9.6 percent used one. The original harvest gold and avocado-colored appliances have been replaced by stainless steel finishes worthy of countertop display, and recipes for pot roast and chili are being traded for creme brulee, lamb vindaloo and even falafel, making the 1970s revolutionary appliance once again kitchen chic.

"We have some pretty sophisticated cooks that come to Clancey's and in the last few years I'm hearing a lot more from people who finally decided to try cooking with a Crock-Pot," said Kristin Tombers, owner of Clancey's, where Kaplan works.

The intense fandom surrounding the slow cooker is probably unmatched by any other kitchen appliance on the market. Oodles of books and websites celebrate the slow cooker and tout its variety of uses for making everything from homemade candles to yogurt and, yes, pot roast, of course.

At every office potluck there's sure to be a slow cooker or two plugged in next to the potato salad. But Minneapolis ad agency Carmichael Lynch takes things further with its annual "Crocktoberfest." The sixth annual crock-potluck was held this week with at least 30 slow cookers lined up for taste-testing, and about half that number of surge protectors, too, just to be safe.

The party started as a joke, said Laura Norton, senior meeting and events planner. The event is now a means for trash-talking around the office about whose recipe will win.

You don't even have to be in the same office to share Crock-Pot affinity. Facebook has recently become a hot bed for "crockpotting." Three Texas moms started the Crock Pot Girls, a group devoted to slow cooking. Since August, they have more than 1.2 million fans who "like" their page.

Gregg Hodges, a Tennessee Web developer, decided the guys needed a space to share their love for slow cooking, so he started the Crock Pot Guys.

And we can't forget the Crockpot Moms, Crockpot Divas, Crock-Pot Ladies, Slow Cooker Squad, Veggie Crock, Crock Pot Sisters. ...

Hodges' group provides a space for everyone -- not just guys -- to share recipes and tips, including a rating system. Hodges also sells T-shirts with slogans like: "Let's Crock," "Crock On" and "Crock Star."

"If you mess up a Crock-Pot dinner, maybe you should just back away from the kitchen," Hodges said. "Now I'm waiting for them to come out with an app so I can control my Crock-Pot with my iPhone."

An Amazon.com search turned up more than three dozen slow-cooker recipe books published in 2011 -- everything from French, Indian and Italian to vegan, low-calorie and gluten-free. Another dozen are scheduled for 2012 publication.

In fact, there are so many recipes out there that in three years of using a slow cooker, Jennifer Valley of Minneapolis has never repeated a recipe.

"It was the most brilliant thing I ever discovered," she said. "We rely on it three days a week."

Johannah Bomster isn't convinced. She's tried jerk chicken, stuffed cabbage and a few other things, always with unsavory results.

"No matter what recipe I follow, it comes out in a watery, oily blob of food that tastes the same," the Minneapolis mother said. "I think sometimes, 'Is it me?' Because everyone else seems to be crazy about it."

Slow-cooker manufacturers are hoping to win over the palates of people like Bomster. In the past five years, the technology of slow cookers has improved, adding to their functionality, said Doug Huemoeller, owner of Kitchen Window in Uptown Minneapolis. Some slow cookers now have functions to fry, saute, braise, simmer, boil, steam, bake and keep food warm -- all in the same pot.

Even celebrity chefs Wolfgang Puck and Gordon Ramsay are jumping aboard with their own lines of slow cookers.

"There are many advantages to slow cooking and there's much more you can do with them now," Huemoeller said. "It still has a little stigma behind it, but people are getting over that because they actually make a lot of sense."

Aimée Tjader • 612-673-1715