Behold...

This is my new Kitchen Aid.



She is Empire Red!



She has been christened The Empress.

As my mother put it, "you are now a Mature Woman." I joked that there is *no need* to get married now! (The Kitchen Aid is a traditional marriage gift.)

So how did I come into the glorious possession of Miss Empress?

I've recently started baking. In November, my parents visited and my mother brought her very, very old mixer. It was actually older than me by a few years. It worked fine for a few weeks, and then died. It died last Friday evening...and I had an order of 500 dog treats that had to be shipped on Saturday morning. Once I realized that, yes, the mixer was dead and yes, I had to mix 500 cookies by hand by morning, I was feeling incredibly frustrated. I castigated the old mixer in a most impolite manner and vocalized these frustrations in a rather undignified way...just as Roommate walked in the door. Now, Roommate has been rather fond of the fact that I now cook and bake (sorry, Roommate, I still don't see myself ever cleaning.) She actually enjoys my dog treats - a handful for breakfast, dipped in soup, etc. And Roommate is a generous person. An incredibly generous, sweet person.

She offered. I refused. She insisted. I refused. She ordered me into the car. I relented. We went to Big Box #1 first. The only mixer on the shelves was a $90 piece of flimsy plastic. "Please don't waste your money on this," I said. "I'll break the mixers in about five minutes." I calculated the hours and the cookies as we got back in the car...if I started hand-mixing now, I could probably still make it to the post office by morning. Instead of going home, Roommate turned into Big Box #2. And there it was, in all her glory. I refused and refused all the way to the register as Roommate told me to (1) accept and (2) be very, very sure Empire Red was ok as she would not be buying me a new Kitchen Aid. Done, and yes.

I cried. And then I cried because I was crying over a Kitchen Aid, which, I'm pretty sure, represents the Chains of the Patriarchy binding me to a lifetime of barefooted pregnantness. Two months ago, I couldn't even imagine myself baking, let alone wishing for a Kitchen Aid. Through my tears, I promised her a lifetime full of homemade pasta, ravioli, bread, soup, and sausage, as Empress came with a pasta attachment, ravioli attachment, bread hook, grain mill attachment, food processor, and sausage-making attachment.

Merry Chrismahanukwanzakah, Allison.