At this time of year, food columns – nay, all sorts of columns – are filled either with retrospectives of the year just finishing up or with predictions for the year just peeking up over the horizon. Food blogs and magazines, food writers and food lovers draw up lists of their top ten restaurants, top ten kitchen gadgets, best recipes, newest culinary star and 101 things to do with leftover turkey, ham and lamb.

I’d be more than happy to do one of these wraps up or gaze into the future except that I’m not sure where to start. How on earth do I chose the top ten of anything in a world as vast of food and food culture. I know they say it’s a small world after all but they didn’t mean the culinary world. That world is VAST and ten isn’t enough to scratch the surface of a month much less a year. Predictions? I’m not sure how anyone can make a grounded prediction regarding food at the moment. Food is tied inextricably to money (note to self: do post explaining that food crisis hasn’t gone away just because headlines have).

I had planned to insert a pun at this point – about crackpots (using the word crockpots) being the only ones who take this type of coverage seriously (get it?) when suddenly I realized. I have a prediction.

Crockpots. Or slow cookers if you prefer. I shall stick to crockpot for literary reasons. I bet crockpots become even more popular now. I know they’ve had a resurgence in the past couple of years. The prices are reasonable. Oh sure, crockpot prices can go from “Are you kidding” expensive to “Gosh, is that all” cheap and everything in between but there is at least a good quality model or two to be found at most price points. .The models of today are not the nightmares to clean that their predecessors were. The idea of throwing everything together and promptly forgetting about it until the end of the day is always appealing – and then there is the basic premise of crockpot cooking. Long slow cooking. The type of cooking that makes cheaper cuts as good or better (very often better) than the expensive ones you must now pass on in order to meet your minimum credit card payment (going up) and fill up the car (don’t fool yourself – it’s going to go back up). It’s hearty, simple, comforting fare made in a straightforward manner (nothing fussily arranged or prepped) out of straightforward ingredients (heavy on the root vegetables that you can stock up on easily as they keep forever).

But you can’t stay home and stare at the four walls every single night – as delicious and simple though supper will be. Occasionally, one needs the companion ship (or at least the noise) of one’s fellow man and/or woman. But let’s face it – even the movies is becoming a drain on the wallet. I don’t know about ticket prices where you live but I live in NYC and tickets, beverage, small popcorn can add up to more than I want to pay to sit in a theater filled with the progressively worsening public behavior of your average movie theater crowd. Going out for drinks? Sure – but does it ever really end up just being drinks. Don’t you all decide (after a couple of overpriced mojitos or bellini martinis) to grab a bit to eat?

So that brings me to my other prediction – pot lucks. Everyone gets a full multi-course meal with out having to cook the whole thing or clean up after the whole thing. The cost of a green bean casserole or garlic lemon chicken breasts is less than that movie ticket I am paying off in installments. And if your friends, who you presumably know and love, behave like iditos you can tell them so instead of just glaring meaningfully at strangers who don’t get or don’t care about your meaning.

Ok, so crockpots and pot lucks. That’s my prediction for 2009. And now that I am looking at them,I’m thinking that the West Bend 5-Quart Oblong-Shaped Slow Cooker with Tote would be the ideal item to bring both these predictions to fruition. I mean, it comes with a tote! How handy is that?