Reading the comments by reviewers on Amazon can save you a bundle. I’ve learned to look up products that I intend to buy locally just to see what Amazon’s reviewers have to say about them.
Case in point: I took it into my fuzzy little head to purchase a slow cooker with a nonstick surface. Whenever I cook the dogs’ chicken or pork, which I do in a crockpot because it can sit in the garage (keeping the smell out of the house) and because I don’t have to tend to it, some residue always sticks on the ceramic container. No amount of soaking will loosen the baked-on gunk. I always end up standing over the garage utility sink, scrubbing with scouring powder. And scrubbing. And scrubbing. And scrubbing. Getting it clean is an unpleasant nuisance of a job.
So I figure to order this contraption from Amazon, the path of least resistance. And here’s what I learn from the reviewers:
- Nonstick coating bubbles up and peels off
- Contrary to advertised claims, can’t brown foods in it first: nonstick coating will bubble up and peel off
- Contrary to advertised claims, can’t be put in dishwasher
- Lightweight, cheaply made, flimsy
- Cover doesn’t fit
- Cover doesn’t fit
- Cover doesn’t fit, dammit!
- Ew! Nonstick gunk flakes off and ends up in the food!
In amongst all this commentary, up pops a message from a woman who says she also found the new products unsatisfactory and so decided to fend for herself. She had a large Le Creuset doufeu. Le Creuset pans are enameled, and that surface is effectively “nonstick.” They’re very easy to clean. Thought she, Why not? She loaded the thing with the same stuff she’d put in a slow cooker, set it in a 200-degree oven, and went away. A few hours later: voilà! A slow-cooked meal!
Ahem. A 7¼-quart Le Creuset doufeu will set you back $420. Plus shipping, which you can bet will be hefty for a 7-quart cast-iron pot. A 4½-quart number only costs $300.
That of course doesn’t count the cost of the crane you’ll need to move it in and out of the oven, once it’s fully loaded with food. (You’re supposed to put ice or cold water in the strangely shaped lid, to enhance condensation inside the pot. Alternatively, you can cook other foods, such as potatoes or cornbread, in the lid.)
A crock pot typically holds about 6 quarts. And I need that much volume to cook a giant package of Costco chicken or pork.
Plus a friend who’s a truck driver recently gave me 20 pounds of ground turkey, because the packages were “damaged.” The dispatcher told her to throw it out, but she couldn’t stand that. We took most of it over to the local food bank, but I held back two 10-pound rolls of the stuff for the dogs.
As I thought about the commenter’s idea, it occurred to me that I must have something like that, somewhere in the house or the garage.
And yea verily! What should I find but two huge stainless-steel, copper-bottomed stew pots! Vast! The one I pulled out of the back of a cabinet holds 6 quarts.
Loaded 5 pounds of meat into the thing and set the oven for 300 degrees. I normally set the slow-cooker on “high,” which will cook most potsful of meat in three or four hours. So I figured 300 would be better than 200.
Actually, if anything it was too fast: in three hours, I’d say the meat was a little overcooked. Next time I’ll set it on 200, which should slow the process into the crockpot realm.
Once the ground turkey was cooked, there was plenty of room to add some oatmeal, which cooked in 20 minutes atop a burner, and then the food-processed mixed veggies. Let it cool, packed it into containers, and a week’s worth of fresh dog food was in the fridge and freezer.
Yes, stuff stuck to the sides, same as it does in the crockpot. But this was easy to clean off. You can put a stainless-steel pan on a stove burner. So all I had to do was fill it with water, toss in a handful of banking soda, and let it simmer for awhile. After that, any leftover gunk washed right off in a minute or two: no overnight soaking, no pan in the way when I want to run the clothes washer, and no endless scouring!
I wouldn’t have thought of this (rather obvious!) solution if I hadn’t taken time to read Amazon’s customer comments.
If I had read the reviews of the Samsung clothes washer that drives me nuts, I wouldn’t have bought it. That was when I learned to read Amazon reviews before buying anything, locally or online.
It’s a good idea to start with the three-star reviews, because those are the ones that are most likely to be objective. Five-star raves are likely to have at least some paid posts among them. And, as it develops, one-star rants are often posted by competitors who are trying to tear down the seller’s product. Most people who post three-star reviews will give the product’s pro’s and cons, and some will allude to problems described in worse reviews, either agreeing that they exist or explaining what the complainer did wrong to get a negative outcome.
I’ll usually read three-star reviews first, then go to the one-star reviews. If I’m not put off the product after that, then I’ll look at five- and four-star reviews. If there’s a “Questions Answered” section, be sure to read those, too.
These days, I read them for things I intend to buy here in town as well as things I order online. It’s almost as good as Consumer Reports!