Skip to main content

Mix and Stir Friday Five

Songbird from Revgalblogpals writes, "In a minor domestic crisis, my food processor, or more precisely the part you use for almost everything for which I use a food processor, picked the eve of the festive season of the year to give up the ghost. A crack in the lid expanded such that a batch of squash soup had to be liberated via that column shaped thing that sticks up on top."

Can you tell this is not my area of strength?

Next week, I'm hosting Thanksgiving. I need your help. Please answer the following kitchen-related questions:

1) Do you have a food processor? Can you recommend it? Which is to say, do you actually use it?

I do own a Kitchenaid mixer with food processing attachments, similar to the one below, but in white. My now- husband got it for me the very first Christmas that we were dating. We lived in Nome and he had to make a trip into Anchorage for his job. He had heard me coveting (!) another woman's and so he thoughtfully bought one for me and brought it back, in its huge box, on the plane. He gave it to me early so I could make Christmas treats with it. I was thrilled and he assured me that he wouldn't always give me household related presents, unless I really, really wanted them.

Yes, yes, yes- I do use it. And, in a side note, it's tough! My sister just inherited my grandmother's. Mine has flown from Nome to Anchorage, from Nome to North Carolina and Connecticut to Eagle River. In luggage. It's still ticking. (Is ticking bad for a mixer? Just kidding.)


2) And if so, do you use the fancy things on it? (Mine came with a mini-blender (used a lot and long ago broken) and these scary disks you used to julienne things (used once).)

I have the meat grinder attachment (use a lot), the food slicer attachment (used twice) and the pasta maker attachment (long to use, but remains untouched). I do use all the standard attachments as well (the mixing blade, the whisk and the dough hook).

3) Do you use a standing mixer? Or one of the hand-held varieties?

See above.

4) How about a blender? Do you have one? Use it much?

I do have a blender. It makes a lot of frozen drinks and smoothies. I have not yet integrated it into the cooking/ food preparation portion of the kitchen activity (except inasmuch as I need a frozen drink during food prep).

5) Finally, what old-fashioned, non-electric kitchen tool do you enjoy using the most?

I have the Wilton rings to make checkerboard cakes that look like this.
It's much easier to do that you think it would be. No electronics are required. This is probably the biggest bang for the buck dessert I can make (other than trifle, but that never looks as impressive).

Comments

Unknown said…
I think that is the coolest special kitchen tool I've ever heard of! So glad you played!!

Popular posts from this blog

Religious Holidays in Anchorage

You may have read in the Anchorage Daily News about a new policy regarding certain religious holidays and the scheduling of school activities. If not, a link to the article is here . The new rules do not mean that school will be out on these new holiday inclusions, but that the Anchorage School District will avoid scheduling activities, like sporting events, on these days. The new list includes Passover, Rosh Hashanah , Yom Kippur , Eid al - Fitr and Eid al - Adha . They are added to a list which includes New Year's, Orthodox Christmas and Easter, Good Friday, Easter, Thanksgiving Day and Christmas. The new holidays may be unfamiliar to some: Passover is a Jewish celebration, in the springtime, that commemorates the events in Egypt that led up to the Exodus. The name of the holiday comes specifically from the fact that the angel of death "passed over" the houses of the Israelites during the plague which killed the eldest sons of the Egyptians. Passover is a holiday ...

Latibule

I like words and I recently discovered Save the Words , a website which allows you to adopt words that have faded from the English lexicon and are endanger of being dropped from the Oxford English Dictionary. When you adopt a word, you agree to use it in conversation and writing in an attempt to re-introduce said word back into regular usage. It is exactly as geeky as it sounds. And I love it. A latibule is a hiding place. Use it in a sentence, please. After my son goes to bed, I pull out the good chocolate from my latibule and have a "mommy moment". The perfect latibule was just behind the northwest corner of the barn, where one had a clear view during "Kick the Can". She tucked the movie stub into an old chocolate box, her latibule for sentimental souvenirs. I like the sound of latibule, though I think I would spend more time defining it and defending myself than actually using it. Come to think of it, I'm not really sure how often I use the ...

Would I Do?

Palm Sunday Mark 11:1-11 One of my core memories is of a parishioner who said, "I don't think I would have been as brave as the three in the fiery furnace. I think I would have just bowed to the king. I would have bowed and known in my heart that I still loved God. I admire them, but I can tell the truth that I wouldn't have done it." (Daniel 3) To me, this man's honesty was just as brave. In front of his fellow Christians, in front of his pastor, he owned up to his own facts: he did not believe he would have had the courage to resist the pressures of the king. He would have rather continued to live, being faithful in secret, than risk dying painfully and prematurely for open obedience to God.  I can respect that kind of truth-telling. None of us want to be weighed in the balance and found wanting. For some of us, that's our greatest fear. The truth is, however, that I suspect most of us are not as brave as we think we are. The right side of history seems cle...