My hubby and I also never understand adding all this stuff to a kitchen. We only have so much room. Cannot have all these specialist devices that don’t all have a place to stow.
Plus, crock pots as well as other faddish items are not easy to clean. Unless you get a super-special device that ensures the actual food-holding part is separable. They all are basically hand clean, and some are not thoughtful as far as how simple or heavy it is even for hand cleaning. If you want to use it all the time you’ll be washing it all the time, and it should be simple to clean.
Anyway that’s just my opinion. YMMV.
When we bought our house (a couple of decades ago) my wife had only one requirement—a huge kitchen with tons of storage.
I got to choose from a subset of those houses.
So—we live way out in the boonies with lots of land and privacy in an unremarkable modest house—but with a huge kitchen with tons of storage!
As far as I know, my wife has never had to really CLEAN our crockpot. They make plastic liners that go in the crockpot so the food cooks inside the liner. Then when you're done, drain out any residual juices and throw the liner away. Wipe out the crockpot with a paper towel and you're done.
Last time I checked the liners were about 20 cents a piece.
Good points, which is why I do maybe 80% of my cooking in cast iron skillets.
Well seasoned cast iron cleans easily with a little hot water and a chainmail scrubber. Wipe it clean with a dry cloth, a few drops of olive oil, and it's ready for the next time.
My “super-special” crock pot with removeable crock was $18. The hand cleaning may take about 5 minutes total.
It does take a bit of storage room.
The biggest problem I have is that it’s 6 or 7 quart and my Mother taught me that, whatever the pan size, you MUST fill it to almost overflowing.
Like you said, just my opinion.