My Favorite Kitchen Appliances

I have two kitchen appliances that I love probably more than I should admit. They are my Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer and my trusty Rival crock pot. My crock pot has come in handy MANY times on nights when I just don't feel like cooking after work or need to plan ahead for a quick dinner when I get home from work. There is nothing like coming home to the scent of a roast and veggies slow-cooked in the crock pot all day long. My crock pot was a house warming gift from an old friend when I moved out of my parents' home into an apartment just after I turned 18. I still have the same crock pot over ten years later!

Here she is loaded up with veggies and a pork roast to be cooked on low all day long.

My Kitchen Aid stand mixer in grey is more a complete indulgent purchase for me, rather than being practical like my crock pot. I stalked her (yes, it is a she) on Macy's website for well over a year before I finally got to bring her home. I waited for just the right sale and used some of the generous gift cards we received as wedding gifts before caving and spending the money on her. Now, I'm in love. I can't wait to buy more attachements (pasta maker and ice cream maker are on my list!) to really test her out and make her a staple in my kitchen.

There is a funny story behind her arrival. I actually got brave and ordered her online after not finding the particular make and model I wanted in the store (I actually researched the motor wattage and wanted a particular speed!). Of course, I did this 3 weeks before Christmas when their warehouse was probably in a state of mayhem. The day my mixer arrived, the UPS guy put it on our porch. To move it into the house, I squatted down to lift with my knees expecting the box to be really heavy and nearly fell over as I stood up and discovered the box was light as a feather. I opened the box to discover a wicker baskets from Rowanda with a packing slip that said the box weighed over 20 lbs and was a mixer. WTF?

Here she is!

A.R. and I went to the local Macy's store and attempted to exchange the hand-woven baskets for the mixer we actually ordered only to get accused of attempting to "steal" a 2nd mixer by the casher. The cashier called her department head after accusing us of trying to take advantage of their system and the manager said there was nothing they could do since we ordered on-line. Um, hello? Aren't you the same store? It says online and in the return instructions on the packing slip that exchanges and returns can be made in-store. Long story short, she took a look at the size of the box the Rowandan baskets came in versus how big the actual mixer box was and then compared the packing slip to the label on our box. It appears someone in the warehouse created a label to ship our mixer to us with the correct weight of the mixer on the box label and packing slip, but then slapped the label on a smaller box and shipped us the baskets while they most likely stole the mixer. It was also quite obvious the box wasn't big enough to hold a mixer and weighed only 2 lbs.

The manager looked up the baskets in their inventory and it turns out they were worth only $1, which meant that they had even been discontinued! We were taken to the bridal registry area where the manager re-ordered the correct mixer for us, gave us an additional discount for our trouble, and let us keep the baskets from Rowanda. How much did my mixer end up costing me? A whopping $25!!! Boo Yah!! Now you know why I love her even more :).

H