Shopping

I bought myself a rolling pin today! Sophia and I stopped at Brown’s Shoe Fit in downtown Longmont to buy her some new tennis shoes and decided to bop across the street to check out the new local cooking shop, Cayenne Kitchen. I’m not a big impulse shopper (frankly, I’m not a shopper at all), but we’d found a fabulous new pair of sneakers for Sophia on sale for $15 (with laces... soooo exciting!), so I was feeling lucky. I thought I might run across a paella pan, which I’m sure I don’t need to make paella, but they’re so coppery and gorgeous.

Alas, no paella pan, but Sophia did spot the rolling pins. As I’ve mentioned in a previous post, I’ve been using Sophia’s four-inch toy cooking set rolling pin. Sad. So, with her encouragement, I bought myself a brand-spanking-new, 12-inch, genuine Vermont maple rolling pin.

Surely this is a sign of the tides a’turning?

Michelle vs. the Stand Mixer, Round One

I would describe myself as frugal. Some in my life would call me downright cheap. I hate to spend money on “stuff” and am sort of anti-technology, but only in weird ways. For example, I love love love this MacBook, but had to be dragged kicking and screaming from my crummy old Dell. Now, I would never go back. I also love my Cuisinart, which was a gift from my mom over ten years ago, and I now consider it an indispensable tool. I expect to put it to daily use soon enough when Joseph’s ready for baby food.

Today, I am grappling with my desire for a high-powered stand mixer versus my disgust at the $350 price tag. How many loaves of bread and pizzas do you have to make before you start to break even? I spent the day researching on the Cook’s Illustrated web site (the Cuisinart 5.5 quart barely beat the KitchenAid Professional 600), reading customer reviews on Amazon and fondling them at Williams-Sonoma. 

End of round one: frugality has won out over my desire for a shiny new kitchen toy. The result? I just spent an hour making homemade pizza dough by hand and am pooped from all of the kneading! And covered in flour. Stay tuned for round two, when I attempt to make homemade artisan bread by hand. If you have a Cuisinart or KitchenAid stand mixer that you love or hate, let me know! Oh, and if the pizza is a disaster, there may be no round two.