another great gift

It is kind of hard to follow up my last post, because really. . .there is nothing better than a friend delivering her baby on your birthday. I'm still flying pretty high from that.  :)  Still, life carries on, and blog I shall.  I figure there will be the occasional photo of Lisa from time to time.  Hope you don't mind. 

A couple of weeks ago, a big box arrived via UPS for me, containing this:

A Kitchen Aid! A Kitchen Aid mixer has been at the top of my "When Dexter is out of School" wish list for a long time, so to get it NOW is awesome.  But this isn't just a Kitchen Aid.  Oh, no.  This particular Kitchen Aid was my grandmother's (Dad's Mom).  Mama, as the grandkids called her, was a fabulous cook, especially her cakes and pies.  Her lemon meringue pie lives long in my memory.  She was also known for her perfect, fluffy and light angel food cakes.  I feel privileged that when I was about 16 she taught me how to make it.  Of course, I only ever made it under her watchful eye, and while I have her recipe, I would do it all differently now, if she were still here to teach me.  In this day of food blogging and step-by-step photos (here's how to crack an egg!  mix the ingredients together! and so on) my recipe seems somewhat lacking.  I wish I could have her teach me again - this time I'd take more notes, perhaps a picture or two - certainly one of her - and then I'd make it. A lot. This recipe (minus the "sparkle") seems to most closely resemble my grandmother's recipe.

But back to the mixer for a minute.  Mama was married in 1941 and had a Kitchen Aid that she used so much it died on her. This is her second one - I'm guessing from around the 60s?  I'm still waiting for one of her kids to chime in with a possible date.  This mixer has worked hard.  It has turned out a lot of mashed potatoes, oatmeal cookies, angel food cakes, pies, and so on, over the years.  I hope I can live up to it!  Since I've had it I've already made two batches of this pumpkin chocolate chip bread, and Hershey's Perfect Chocolate cake (that's no lie).  With Christmas around the corner, I imagine I'll put 'er to good use in the next few weeks. I can't wait to churn out triple batches of cookies with ease!

Thanks to my Aunt Marg who sent it to me.  It is in good hands.