Personal: October 2005 Archives
In spite of being a geek gadget girl, I have to admit that my favorite machine in the whole wide world is decidedly low tech. It has no flashing lights, does not play MP3s, does not require a graphical user interface to interact with. It has no buttons, it isn't networked, and only two levers. It lives in a room that anyone who knows me well, also knows I don't frequent very often. If I had to guess, I'd say that it's at least 25 years old and its totally irreplaceable to me.
My husband and father like to joke that the only things with a motor that you can give a woman on a major occasion are a car or a Kitchen Aid stand mixer. And it really is true. I am totally not a creature of the kitchen, but when I am in a store with kitchen appliances, I just have to check them out. They have a special aura about them that I can't resist. But I have never purchased one on my own. When I didn't have one, I just couldn't justify it, given my limited interest in cooking and baking. It's a little elitist, but I believe that the good tools should really go to the people who can appreciate them, people who love what they can do with them.
Mine actually came to live with me through a very happy circumstance: my dad bought my mother a new Kitchen Aid stand mixer. One with more features and a nicer bowl. And that left mom with one mixer too many and not enough space to store both of them. The old one still ran fine and it came with all the wonderful memories of baking with my mother while I was growing up. Years of making sugar cookie dough for Christmas, cupcakes for birthdays at school, fresh bread, fresh whipped cream fo strawberry shortcake. And not a few batches of chocolate chip cookies. This, my friends, is a mixer with good vibes. It probably should have gone to my brother (who is actually an awesome cook), but I called it first. And I'm the oldest. And I snuck it out to my car almost before mom had finished unwrapping her new machine. You gotta be fast in my family.
She's not pretty, but she's wonderful. And she's solid like a rock, even after how many years. You want to see the proof?
This mixer can take on a double bach of chocolate chip cookie dough without blinking an eye. It sneers in the face of the addition of walnuts and a few extra chips. I don't actually like to do much in the kitchen, but I do like to make cookies. And if this mixer has anything, it has definite good cookie making karma.
And it helped me make some pretty awesome cookies tonight.
Every now and again, I do feel a little guilty about having this mixer. Not for denying my brother the real cook the chance to have this machine (you don't need to feel sorry for him, he got my mothers fabulous old Le Cruset pots when she upgraded), but because my mother's new machine didn't turn out to be made of the same great stuff as this one is. Apparently the newer ones have a lot more plastic parts. She'd only had it for a year or so when one of them broke while she was asking the mixer to work hard. It just seemed so wrong for that to happen.
But, hey, I called no give backs...
For anyone worried, my wonderful father got that part replaced quickly. And my mom gets visitation rights. But it does make you realize that they don't build things like they used to...
