After sampling an amazing corned beef brisket cooked in a crockpot last night at Trader Joe’s, I got all inspired and decided to slow cook my corned beef this year too. Hooray, I thought, chuck that baby in the crockpot and spend the rest of the day chilling with a frothy pint o’ Guinness!
Well, that’s not exactly how things went down. Things started off great, I got up and fed Greta, Googled some corned beef in a crockpot advice and then washed and preheated our crockpot. Yes, much to Christine’s chagrin, I preheat my crockpot. I’ve been doing it for years and have never had a problem…until today.
The minute that slab of cold corned beef and all that pink juicy goodness plopped into the overheated ceramic crockpot, I heard a horrible CRACK and knew right away what had happened. That’s right, I broke my crockpot crock in half…a nice clean crack right down the left side.
So, with pink corned beef juice slowly leaking into the metal pan of the crockpot, I hurriedly transferred everything to a regular pot on the stove. Crazy! And while that came to a boil I decided to call Rival’s Customer Service number to see how much a replacement ceramic crock would set me back and was promptly put on hold…for 43 minutes!
Now, a sane, reasonable person would have probably hung up and called back later…but not me! I held that sweaty phone to my ear like a crazy person as I rocked Greta to sleep for her nap and when an operator finally came on I told her my plight. And what happened next can only be described as a St. Patrick’s Day miracle…the lovely young woman at Rival offered to replace my ceramic crock for FREE! No shipping charge, no handling fee, no “wow-you-preheat-your-crockpot” charge, nothing.
It seems they’ve been having trouble with their phones today — which might explain my 43 minute wait on hold! — so to compensate for that, Rival was offering their customers all sorts of cool stuff. She even said, and I quote: “Well, sir, the luck of the Irish must be with you today!” Hilarious!!
So, as I blast U2, Sinead and the Cranberry’s and the aroma of boiled corned beef wafts through my house, all I can say is, thank you, Rival Customer Service…you guys seriously rock. And though I won’t be able to slow cook my corned beef brisket till next year, you can bet your shillelagh that I’ll be thanking St. Patrick for the miracle of the replaced crockpot as I do it.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day, amigos!
Tomas, I’ve done a few corn beefs in crock pots, and the first one came out really dry. After that one, I started putting a shallow bowl in the crockpot, on top the corned beef, to keep it under water. Seems to work.
And that’s my corned beef tip of the day!
Hmmm…that’s a great idea, Damon. I’ll have to try it when my new crockpot arrives!
I’m glad you were able to enjoy your St. Patrick’s Day feast after all.
Nice Route 66 glass…me thinks you should add that as a “tag” to this post.