Santa Claus Came to Town

When I was very small, my mom started baking bread from scratch instead of buying it at the store. When she first started, she did the whole thing by hand, including the 10+ minutes of kneading required for the correct dough consistency. I think I was five the year my parents brought home a Bosch mixer from the Eastern Idaho State Fair. That Bosch was a key component of our kitchen, and when my dad designed our kitchen in our new house, it had a special cupboard just for the Bosch.

I came home for a weekend last September. During my break, my mom asked me to bake some bread. I pulled out the old Bosch to start mixing.  I looked about like this:

But it definitely sounded more like this:

 

I was more than a little horrified. In all fairness, it had just turned 17...probably not many appliances survive to late adolescence, especially ones that get used as frequently as that mixer did (4 loaves of bread two or three times a week, plus sundry other baked goods that require mixing.)

I guess I was more appalled that my mom was tolerating a less-than-ideal situation when she bought me a new mixer just a few years ago. So over the deafening noise of the bread kneading, I started researching mixers. I called my brothers and sisters for their input. We all decided that mom was going to get a new mixer for Christmas this year.

It's hard to decide what to get your mom for Christmas in September, because that's a long time to keep the secret. We ordered her new mixer at the end of October. I was giddy on the day it got delivered to my apartment.

I just had to open the box and peek inside!

And then....tragedy struck.  The first week of December, the old mixer kicked the bucket.  My mom wasn't sure how she was going to get through the month without one, especially with Jared's farewell on the horizon.  My dad helped prevent her running straight to the store to buy a new one by playing his role as resident engineer perfectly.  He dismantled the entire mixer, telling her that it might be salvageable.  I called to offer my condolences and promised to bring my mixer home with me to get us through the holidays. 

It looked so small sitting on the counter.  And my mom experienced LOTS of frustration trying to accommodate the smaller bowl.  Apparently, she is used to doubling recipes instead of halving them :)

All the while, her new mixer was sitting upstairs waiting for Christmas morning!

It was so fun watching her open it.  She was pretty surprised.  It made its way downstairs to its new home (I measured the cupboard in the kitchen before we decided what type of mixer to buy, just to make sure it would fit.)  She used it for the first time to make bread yesterday.  It's a bit of a change to switch from a Bosch to a Kitchenaid, but the bread was good, so we're off to a good start!