In 2005, my friend Mike bought an old and unreliable Infiniti G20 sedan in England for the equivalent of $750, did some emergency repairs, then drove it across Europe and down to Senegal. That was a long time ago, and now that I think of it, I wonder if he ever showered on that trip. But he recently took one look at the slow cooker I was reviewing and immediately wished out loud that he'd had it with him.
"We had a plug in the back," he said, reminiscing about cooking eggs on the radiator and eating uncooked ramen noodle packs. "This would have been perfect."
Mike and I were marinara-making, getting ready to enjoy the kind of deep-flavored food you can make simply by letting something cook quietly over the course of the day. The appliance we used worked like an old-school slow cooker, but it looked like none I'd ever seen.
Samantha Cooper
The Presto Nomad[1] is a short, squat machine that looks more like an Igloo Playmate cooler than a Crock-Pot. With a low, rectangular body, a large carry handle that swings up over the top, and eye-catching colors, it's like they told a chef and a children's toy designer who'd never heard of a slow cooker to invent one, adding one stipulation: that it be made to travel.
Slow cookers have struggled a bit trying to compete with the growing popularity of electric pressure cookers, many of which can also slow cook, albeit not always as well. Yet slow cookers' convenience is undeniable: throw a few ingredients in a pot in the morning and return home to something with deep flavor that beats the pants off of most stuff you could blitz through after work....