Ode to a Stand Mixer

Martha Stewart I am not. Its not for lack of desire. I would love to be the put together women with an impecably decorated home and homemade EVERYTHING. Baked goodies, handmade Christmas cards, ironed shirts. But lets be honest, my desire for that homemade touch is most often outweighed by my lack of organization and follow through. My "craft" cupboard is overstuffed with well-intentioned projects, including a wonderful mini-album that was intended to be C's first birthday present and is now something he will be lucky to receive before graduation :) .

Baking is something I always liked to do, but was never particularly good at. Past attempts have been fraught with mismeasurements (resulting in a lot of melting cookies due to too much butter or too little flour), burnt bottoms (we actually termed this event the annual "scraping of the cookies" after me and mom spent consecutive Christmas' scraping the bottom of the cookies with butter knives to try and remove the charcoaled bottoms), and a loss of motivation to even try.

As most of you know, my many food allergies make buying baked goods tricky and best, deadly at worst. After several trips to the emergency room I've resigned myself to the fact that unless i make it, I'm not eating it. Enter the KitchenAid stand mixer. Two Christmas' ago, after agreeing on a Christmas gift budget, my husband COMPLETELY blew our budget and gave me a stand mixer. It was a beautiful thing, and just seeing it reignited that deep rooted Martha Stewart complex. No, it won't measure my flour, no it won't keep my cookies from burning, but it just makes everything so easy. I love it! Its mesmorising. Both the boys will pull up a chair and sit quietly for HOURS watching it mix batch after batch of goodie.

I bake WAY more (not so great for the waist line, but sure keeps the kids happy). And truth be told, it makes me feel fancy, I create my goodies all the while day dreaming I have a little cooking show and an audience watching my baking prowess. With the help of a fancy mixer and a kitchen timer, we have not had a scraping of the cookies since 2007, and I'm happy to say there is no lack of baked goods in the Rivett household this year.