This little blog is a place where I can talk about anything and everything to do with Rival Crock Pot Slow Cookers ... and not feel to out of place doing it. That pretty much describes it. People that come across this site either find it interesting enough to read and maybe glean something from it and move on or, they don't find it of interest - maybe they find it wasn't what they were searching for, and move on. When I chose to do this as a blog I did so because it is a convenient format which allows me to add to it whenever the urge should strike me . Many people however expect a blog to be something that is regularly updated even if the content might suffer in the process. To be honest, I am of the mind that if I have nothing to add to the site then that is what I will do: nothing - that is until that fancy ( the before mentioned urge) strikes me to add something that I feel is relevant to a site that has to do with the kitchen crock pot cooker.
Whether it is something to do with some new Rival bbq pit crock pot (ie. a bbq slow cooker), info about a Rival crock pot lid, some shiny new programmable crock cooker with extra buttons, an army-feeding crock pot trio, a new Rival products recall, an update on the latest Rival crock pot accessories or Rival crock pot replacement parts, or even just me posting a slow cooker recipe that is easy enough even for me to follow successfully, when I feel it is relevant then I will probably get around to mentioning it here.
So why is this relevant? Well, mainly because of two things: first, I just recently realized that I have had a fair number of people leaving me questions in my comment sections on various posts here that basically have to do with the problem of Rival crock pot parts and where to find them; this is turning out to be a bit of a challenge for a number of you, even after visiting the Rival website in your search for replacement parts. (handles, lids, stoneware liners, etc.) You have made it clear to me that you are smart, with it people who have become frustrated because you have a perfectly good crock pot at home that just needs maybe a minor repair and you want to do the environmentally - and economically sensible thing and maintain it, but have not found anywhere to get the necessary parts to do so. The second reason for this post is something I saw in my building the other day, but I will get back to that later.
Now I have given more than one person on here a few suggestions about how to maybe go about finding the spare crock pot part(s) you seek; I figured that maybe it would benefit future visitors here if I just went and summarized my suggestions in one post instead of hoping that people stumble across the right page's comment section for my responses. Okay, so you have gone to the Rival Crockpot website ( crockpot.com - an easy one to remember, eh?) and found yourself duly disappointed because your beloved crock pot slow cooker just doesn't seem to be well represented there; they might have some stuff listed for your serial number/model of slow cooker and might even be selling it on there, but when it comes to the specific replacement part you need: nada. Does this mean it is time to give up? Time to bite the bullet and shell out some recession dollars to buy a new crock pot so you can get back to that new crock pot recipe you have ben wanting to try?
My answer to this is not necessarily.
True the obvious place to find spare or replacement parts might be the crock pot website, but there are a host of other places and resources out there for you to at least check out before you give up. Staying with the online theme, ebay, craigslist, kijiji, and Amazon.com are all possibilities; any one of those sites might have someone on them selling a used crock pot that is similar to yours and still functional enough for you to purchase for parts. As well you could always try posting on some of those sites or on relevant forums that you are looking to buy a specific model of crock pot for parts; many people might not realize that they could turn their used kitchen appliance into some spare cash.
Moving on to some more brick and mortar alternatives, there are places such as liquidation outlets, where you might be lucky enough to find a whole crock pot available for the price of a replacement part (you never know). This category of retailer would include both the surplus/overstock retail stores and the auction house retailers who are selling stock from a retailer that has gone out of business. Another kind of location to check out would be any form of thrift store/charity shop or used goods dealer that might yield results. Many people end up giving away their trusty old appliance when they get a shiny newer one, and if they don't have a friend or a friend of a friend who needs their perfectly good old one, then often a charity shop is the most obvious answer. To mix my metaphors, their charitable act becomes your crock pot's gain. Along similar lines, if the Season is right, why not try walking the neighborhood during yard sale season or try visiting a local organised swap meet. Most neighborhoods have these on a regular basis, you just need to know where to look. A way to increase the odds of success with all of these methods, is to take the part that needs replacing with you to the local crock pot retailer and see what other models, if any, your broken part is most identical to; if you feel confident in your observations you might find that there are actually several models of crock pot slow cooker that are suitable for your replacement parts needs.
Okay I said that there were two reasons that I felt motivated to write this post and collecting the aforementioned ideas together was one of them; the second is because of something that I saw in my apartment building the other day. I was taking the garbage down to our building's basement/parking area (like many people have to do), and once I got there I noticed that between the garbage bin and the recycling bins somebody had discarded a few home appliances; probably they were left behind when someone was moving out of the building. (which would seem the likely reason since it was around about the end of the month when this happened) Among the collection were a VCR (remember those?), a rice cooker, a cassette stereo player, along with some well used pots and pans - oh and also one Rival crock pot! Now to be fair, the crock pot did appear to be well used and had probably seen better days - there was even a note taped to the lid saying that the lid was missing a knob (it was) but that it still worked. I thought about acquiring it but decided that it would be best to first confer with my wife on whether it was worth grabbing since we already have one that we use for all our slow cooker recipes, and went on my merry way.
That was the last I ever saw of it.
Later that day, after I had conferred with the wife and had secured her permission to bring up the slow cooker I went back down to the basement to grab the crock but it was too late: it was already gone. In fact everything was gone: the garbage and all of the stuff left next to the garbage was gone. If I thought that someone else had beat me to the slow cooker then I would have no problem with that: you snooze you lose. But I had the sinking feeling that someone had just grown frustrated with the apparent dumping of unwanted appliances and had simply thrown them all into the garbage just before it was to be collected
. This made me feel rather disappointed that the original owner had not apparently been aware of the potential value of his unwanted things to another who might have been most grateful to take the slow cooker of his or her hands. True , the previous owner might have had more important things in life to deal with then passing on a used crock pot (who doesn't), but still it was sad to think that it was probably a lack of awareness of the fact that people are always looking for used crock pots just for parts regardless of whether or not the actual appliance is still working. Oh well, at least my frustrations provided me with a reason to post once again...
