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Folks, just ignore this rude fellow. A slow cooker is essentially a low temperature heating element and a ceramic cooking vessel. The ceramic dissipates the low

Folks, just ignore this rude fellow. A slow cooker is essentially a low temperature heating element and a ceramic cooking vessel. The ceramic dissipates the low heat evenly even on the cheaper ones, and you get a result within tolerance so long as the regulator isn't crap. Just don't scratch up the glaze. Your optimal slow cooker will have decent insulation (saves on energy) and if you crave luxury, a timer so that you can set it to automatically turn off or switch to "keep warm" after x hours. You're also in luck because most people never use their slow cookers and eventually donate them to the local thrift shop, so you can pick them up super cheap to try out and decide if a slow cooker is for you. Once you've gotten a taste for slow cooked foods, you can start looking around for what tools will best serve your future culinary ambitions. And no, you don't need a Le Creuset; that's just for snobs who like to tell everyone that they have Le Creuset. It won't make better carmelized onions.

Larrikin 3y ago
Name the brand and model of your amazing 5 dollar slow cooker and give us some recipes to use in it. Or people could just read dozens of reviews of a hundred year cooking vessel where they always complain about the price but reluctantly admit its better. Spending lots of money on cooking supplies as a novice is fraught with landmines of people wasting money, but out right dismissals of spending any money is also usually a red flag of someone just discovering cooking. A college sophomore in their first apartment probably doesn't need a $300 dollar knife, but an adult with a job that spends the money on something nice will get years if not decades on a much safer and more efficient knife they will get used to with occasional whetstone sharpening.
- throwaway2037 3y ago
  The OP wrote: bought at a goodwill for $5 The person made no other claims about this slow cooker except caramelizing onions.
  - Larrikin 3y ago
    My point was >Maybe you got lucky and your 5 dollar slow cooker really makes good caramelized onions. But my experience trying recipes over the years, there are a few good sources of free recipes from a few places on the internet, and nearly everyone, without a team of testers backing them, is at best mediocre and usually sucks. The 15 minute caramelized onions, the cheap slow cooker onions, and other such things are nearly always lies, despite how much I wish them to be true.
    - bluGill 3y ago
      I have used a number of different slow cooker brands over the years. Most were Crock-pot brand, but I've used others. I've never been able to tell the difference. Sure there are tools where brand matters, but in the case of a slow cooker I'm putting the burden back on you: find me any brand that is actually inferior or better than the others. I don't think you can. Non-slow-cooker things like a pressure cooker (ie instant-pot) with a slow cooker function are inferior to a real slower cooker, but they don't claim to be a slow cooker either.
- onli 3y ago
  Every knife is sharp if you sharpen it. There is never a need to spend $300 on one.
  - tourmalinetaco 3y ago
    Never a need for the home cook. Professional chefs pay for quality much like we do in tech. Ergonomics, edge retention, sharpness, and dozens of other factors can influence that $300 knife and whether its useful for a professional who chops food 8-10hrs a day, 5 days a week. For the home cook, who chops maybe for 1/10th that weekly, not much reason beyond placebo.
    - kstenerud 3y ago
      Mind you, going mid-range with something like a Victorinox can be a good bet for home cooking. $50-ish chef's knife that holds its edge well enough that a honing steel will keep it sharp for a couple of months of once-or-twice-a-day use. Nothing more annoying than squishing your tomatoes as you try to cut (except having to take time out to sharpen your knives all the time).
  - denton-scratch 3y ago
    > Every knife is sharp if you sharpen it. That's not consistent with my experience. Some knives will never take a good edge. But not all knives actually need a good edge. There are evidently different kinds of "stainless steel"; some kinds are immune to sharpening, some are quite good. But if I want a really sharp kitchen knife, it has to be carbon steel. Carbon steel knives rust/pit easily - you have to clean them and dry them, you can't just leave them to dry in the sun.
- genocidicbunny 3y ago
  Money does not necessarily buy you quality, or if it does, a worthwhile amount of it. I have some nice knives that cost a decent amount, but guess what, my day to day knives are from a $15 ikea knife set that I bought half a decade ago. Are these knives going to last me decades? No, but with relatively minimal upkeep over the years, they're just as sharp as my nice knives. I will probably eventually throw them out when their handles start breaking, but at that point I will have gotten way more than my $15 of value out of them.
  - Larrikin 3y ago
    You named no brands for comparison and ignored a specific call out for comparison. Wanting something to be true doesn't make it true and as a novice cook this was the most obvious time I learned it.
    - genocidicbunny 3y ago
      Brands of what? Comparison of what? What specifically would you hope to be able to compare between either slow cookers or knives that would have any serious effect on how good the food you can use them to make is?
      - Larrikin 3y ago
        The most popular pots and pans for cooking do actually have a brand associated with them, even if its as big as Teflon. Not being able to name any, with a good or bad opinion, is comparable to not having a good or bad opinion about a novel. An old medium where its possible they have a valid new opinion, but usually a good indicator of the level of their opinion.
        HPsquared 3y ago
        I think most cookware purchases are just what happened to be in the store at the time. Brands aren't considered much. Even for things like large appliances and cars this applies for a lot of people - and they're not necessarily wrong either.

Larrikin 3y ago

Name the brand and model of your amazing 5 dollar slow cooker and give us some recipes to use in it. Or people could just read dozens of reviews of a hundred year cooking vessel where they always complain about the price but reluctantly admit its better. Spending lots of money on cooking supplies as a novice is fraught with landmines of people wasting money, but out right dismissals of spending any money is also usually a red flag of someone just discovering cooking. A college sophomore in their first apartment probably doesn't need a $300 dollar knife, but an adult with a job that spends the money on something nice will get years if not decades on a much safer and more efficient knife they will get used to with occasional whetstone sharpening.

throwaway2037 3y ago
The OP wrote: bought at a goodwill for $5 The person made no other claims about this slow cooker except caramelizing onions.
- Larrikin 3y ago
  My point was >Maybe you got lucky and your 5 dollar slow cooker really makes good caramelized onions. But my experience trying recipes over the years, there are a few good sources of free recipes from a few places on the internet, and nearly everyone, without a team of testers backing them, is at best mediocre and usually sucks. The 15 minute caramelized onions, the cheap slow cooker onions, and other such things are nearly always lies, despite how much I wish them to be true.
  - bluGill 3y ago
    I have used a number of different slow cooker brands over the years. Most were Crock-pot brand, but I've used others. I've never been able to tell the difference. Sure there are tools where brand matters, but in the case of a slow cooker I'm putting the burden back on you: find me any brand that is actually inferior or better than the others. I don't think you can. Non-slow-cooker things like a pressure cooker (ie instant-pot) with a slow cooker function are inferior to a real slower cooker, but they don't claim to be a slow cooker either.
onli 3y ago
Every knife is sharp if you sharpen it. There is never a need to spend $300 on one.
- tourmalinetaco 3y ago
  Never a need for the home cook. Professional chefs pay for quality much like we do in tech. Ergonomics, edge retention, sharpness, and dozens of other factors can influence that $300 knife and whether its useful for a professional who chops food 8-10hrs a day, 5 days a week. For the home cook, who chops maybe for 1/10th that weekly, not much reason beyond placebo.
  - kstenerud 3y ago
    Mind you, going mid-range with something like a Victorinox can be a good bet for home cooking. $50-ish chef's knife that holds its edge well enough that a honing steel will keep it sharp for a couple of months of once-or-twice-a-day use. Nothing more annoying than squishing your tomatoes as you try to cut (except having to take time out to sharpen your knives all the time).
- denton-scratch 3y ago
  > Every knife is sharp if you sharpen it. That's not consistent with my experience. Some knives will never take a good edge. But not all knives actually need a good edge. There are evidently different kinds of "stainless steel"; some kinds are immune to sharpening, some are quite good. But if I want a really sharp kitchen knife, it has to be carbon steel. Carbon steel knives rust/pit easily - you have to clean them and dry them, you can't just leave them to dry in the sun.
genocidicbunny 3y ago
Money does not necessarily buy you quality, or if it does, a worthwhile amount of it. I have some nice knives that cost a decent amount, but guess what, my day to day knives are from a $15 ikea knife set that I bought half a decade ago. Are these knives going to last me decades? No, but with relatively minimal upkeep over the years, they're just as sharp as my nice knives. I will probably eventually throw them out when their handles start breaking, but at that point I will have gotten way more than my $15 of value out of them.
- Larrikin 3y ago
  You named no brands for comparison and ignored a specific call out for comparison. Wanting something to be true doesn't make it true and as a novice cook this was the most obvious time I learned it.
  - genocidicbunny 3y ago
    Brands of what? Comparison of what? What specifically would you hope to be able to compare between either slow cookers or knives that would have any serious effect on how good the food you can use them to make is?
    - Larrikin 3y ago
      The most popular pots and pans for cooking do actually have a brand associated with them, even if its as big as Teflon. Not being able to name any, with a good or bad opinion, is comparable to not having a good or bad opinion about a novel. An old medium where its possible they have a valid new opinion, but usually a good indicator of the level of their opinion.
      - HPsquared 3y ago
        I think most cookware purchases are just what happened to be in the store at the time. Brands aren't considered much. Even for things like large appliances and cars this applies for a lot of people - and they're not necessarily wrong either.