Kneading dough...


Time to get a stand mixer....

The other day, my husband decided that, for his birthday I should shell out $270.00 for a KitchenAide 5 quart stand mixer. I thought this was silly because we already have a mixer, albeit a fairly puny one. In fact, compared to this KitchenAide monster, ours is a pathetic, limp, floppy, feeble, tiny, miniature thing. Basically I chalked this up to his turning 34 later this year, well past gay mid-life. Thus, I assumed his hankering for, not a red convertible Mustang, but a mighty mixing machine, was simply an attempt to reclaim youth or something.

Then, last night, we decided to make pizza dough for a calzone he's making tonight. Yes, this is the way we eat nearly every night. Just take a look at the recipes on his blog -- and those are a mere taste (one might say) of the things he makes for dinner most evenings. Feel free to stop by, there's always plenty, especially when he makes risotto.

Anyway, we hooked up our flaccid little mixer with the dough hook and prepared to knead the dough for 15 minutes as directed by the recipe. (It takes quite a while to make enough gluten to really get a good stretchy pizza dough.) Well, our limp little mixer nearly had a coronary. First it was literally walking, stomping in fact, across the counter. Second the motor was coughing and chugging like Aretha Franklin on a StairMaster. And third, all this activity was only giving the dough ball a fun carousel ride around the mixing bowl. Weeee!

It was decided that we'd just knead by hand, even though we knew that it would take probably twice as long to get a good windowpane. Half an hour later, I was finished, though I now know why all the women in very old photographs look so dour and have arms like Popeye.

Though he denies it, I suspect this was all a set-up to get a new mixer. I suspect this because it is precisely the type of thing I would do. But then, he's not nearly as conniving as I am. In fact, this is precisely the kind of scheme I cooked up (heh) to get a TiVo, but that's another story, one which I probably won't tell because it'll make me sound like a scheming conniver, and the point of this blog is always portray me in a good light.

So what color should we get? (He's partial to the Cobalt Blue one, but I like the Empire Red one. Hey, if you're going to have a midlife crisis, it should involve something candy apple red with a powerful engine, right?)

EDIT: It occurs to me that, given the number of lunatics out there, I should point out that the "Feel free to stop by" thing was a joke. Don't just stop by.

UPDATE: I thought I had blogged about my TiVo scheming, but I couldn't find the entry. Here it is.

Posted: Thu - April 6, 2006 at 10:35 AM        

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