You Never Forget Your First…

I don’t remember exactly how old I was when it arrived; I was just a kid. (Maybe ten or so.) Avocado green, because that’s how it was done in the 1970s. Our old Sunbeam Mixmaster had gone to the great appliance farm in the sky. We had an Oster meat grinder which made the most unholy high-pitched scream when it ran.

Then, one day, there it was.

This futuristic-looking machine did a superior job in both of the areas where it replaced the old mixers. And it had a “dough hook”, which as it turns out was really good for making bread.

I did a lot of baking with that mixer in the in-between years. Then came pursuits that took me out of the kitchen: cycling, college, all that stuff we get into once we hit our teenaged years and grow to adulthood.

This was my mom’s mixer. It’s still in the family. One of my older sisters has it now, and it’s in good hands.

One day last winter (I think it was), my sister mentioned that the mixer wasn’t running well. “I’ll be happy to take a look at it,” I said. She shipped it, it arrived, I replaced the motor brushes, much better now, enjoy. (It could have used a grease service too, and might need a new motor control plate; but I didn’t know that at the time and I didn’t feel competent to open it up. I’ve since put in a request to have it shipped in so that I can give it the spa treatment it deserves.)

So yeah. First KitchenAid mixer becomes first KitchenAid mixer repair job. It’s not “the avocado-green K45”, though. It’s still “mom’s mixer”.

(A note about the photo: the glass bowl is actually a “beehive bowl” from a 4C. It fits on the same bowl base, but isn’t the bowl the mixer came with. The original K45 bowl was stainless steel.)