If you're as old as we are, you grew up with a slow cooker on the counter during the day as dinner got made over the long haul. Slow cookers: a history, not just the ways they've come in and out of style, but what's happened mechanically to the machines over the years.

We're Bruce Weinstein & Mark Scarbrough. We've written over three dozen cookbooks, including THE GREAT AMERICAN SLOW COOKER BOOK, which was a giant hit on QVC. If you'd like to check out that book, click this link.

We're talking about slow cookers: their history, their ins and outs, and the changes that have happened to them over the years.

[00:51] Our one-minute cooking tip: Save the olive oil from tins of sardines and anchovies for the base of a stew.

[02:22] How did the slow cooker come about? (Invented by Western Electric's first Jewish engineer.) How did they come to be called "crock pots"? And what's happened to them over the years, including the mechanical changes to them nowadays?

[18:16] What’s making us happy in food this week: lamb kofta and lemon marmalade.