A tip that gets less helpful the more you think about it, but it could still be useful...

When I perused The Best of Electric Crockery Cooking (Jacqueline Hériteau, 1976), I did notice one tip for crock-pot-cookery that seemed pretty cool.

Admittedly, I am not the kind of person who would appreciate Sausage-Stuffed Apples, but I get that the sweet-and-savory crowd would see the appeal. The part of this recipe that interested me was the idea that if you wanted the dish for breakfast, you could set the prepped food on a trivet over some ice cubes to keep the food safe if it had to set out for a while, then set the timer "to start cooking on Low, 5 or 6 hours before breakfast." I liked the idea that it would be ready on time AND still safe after setting out for a while, even if you didn't necessarily want the apples cooking the entire night. 

Of course, then I looked at the recipe more closely. If it takes at least six hours to cook, why would you set the timer for five hours before you wanted breakfast? They'd still be underdone. And if they can cook up to eight hours anyway, why bother with the ice at all? You could probably just start everything as you went to bed, or if you sleep a long time or have a lengthy morning routine before breakfast, set the timer to start an hour or two after you go to bed. Food is supposed to be safe at room temperature for up to two hours anyway, unless it's at a picnic in the sun on a hot day or something like that. So the trick doesn't actually seem particularly necessary for this recipe, but it's still a neat idea that might be more helpful for something with a shorter cooking time. 

Maybe Hériteau just wanted to put this tip in somewhere and landed on this recipe? Who knows, but I'm glad it showed up...