My New KitchenAid Mixer: the Call of Cthulhu

My new mixer, dominating my counter space. Luckily there's a big enough space
to store it in my pantry.

Not to go all introspective on you or anything, but there are some questions that I need to ask myself about the new red KitchenAid mixer in my kitchen. I'm answering them to the best of my ability.

1. Question: Why did you buy a new Professional 6000 KitchenAid mixer with 1 horsepower? Why a mixer that you can't lift and that is much to big to leave on the counter all the time? With enough horsepower to propel a bicycle?
   Answer: Tuesday was Amazon Prime Day, and Amazon had decided that I was going to buy this mixer and no other. The offer was waiting in my email when I got up in the morning. Amazon is a dangerous and mysterious power like H.P.Lovecraft's Cthulhu: when Amazon calls you, or more likely emails you, you obey. 
2. Q: Was this a completely new idea, buying a mixer? Didn't you already have one? Like, what did you do before Tuesday if you wanted to bake something?

   

   Ad for my mother's
   Sunbeam Mixmaster, 1950s
   (source: Janet Rudolph blog)

   
   A: Well, I've been considering a new mixer for a long time. The old one wasn't very powerful and I've had it for more than half my lifetime. The mixer before that was a Mixmaster that had belonged to my mother. She got it when I was around 10 so I learned to bake on it. In other words, my new KitchenAid is the third mixer ever in my life.
3. Q: Did you really need it?
   A: I admit that I haven't been baking much lately, or using the old mixer much. Actually, I had more or less decided that I wasn't going to get another one. But Amazon decided that I would get it. And it really was a good deal!
4. Q: What have you mixed in it so far?
   A: For my first bake using the new mixer, I made peanut butter cookies using the recipe from my old printed copy of the Joy of Cooking. It won't be long until I try something else, like pizza. Maybe I'll start baking bread some time.
   

   

   My stained old Joy of Cooking, Peanut Butter Cookie page. The check
   by the recipe is from some time in the distant past. As is the "NO GOOD" note.

5. Q: Why peanut butter cookies?
   A: Because I didn't have any chocolate chips or nuts or whatever for other cookies. The PB cookies were fun, just like I remember from childhood and mixer #1. Especially that criss-cross fork thing.






Fresh from the oven. Crumbly! Like a childhood memory.



6. Q: How did the mixer do?
   A? It was fabulous. I hail my purchasing overlords. What will I have to buy next?

 

Old mixer awaiting its fate, which is to be taken to the basement.
Evelyn gave it to me as a Mother's Day present many many years ago.
She forgives me for replacing it.