Kitchen AIDS in Journal of life stuff

One spot of writing today wasn’t enough. I need more. Kitchenaid mixers are the pain point. For those who don’t know, you get a plastic drive gear in the models that aren’t “pro” or “professional” branded. Arguments about whether this is good or not abound, but the fact of the matter is that a plastic gear will fatigue and break over time whereas a metal gear will only break if pushed too hard or made improperly.

The other tidbit to know is that only three model numbers of Kitchenaid mixers come with DC motors. Why does that matter? Well, the DC motor is a LOT quieter than the AC motor. Youtube can provide you with examples. It’s the difference between a blender and a microwave, in terms of sound output. Youtube will provide a more precise comparison than that, but for my purposes, I prefer to at least have the option to make bread dough at 10pm without disturbing the apartments around me than buying something where I KNOW I will disturb them. The DC motors all come with metal gears throughout and are generally built to a much higher standard.

The downside? Where you can get a cheaper Kitchenaid model for $150 on sale, the cheapest you’ll grab one with a DC motor is around $350, as a refurb unit, on sale. Lame! But, it’s probably buy-it-for-life, even if that life consists of making pizza and bagel doughs every time it is turned on.

But there’s another way to make pizza dough, which is the thing that I actually would use it for 99% of the time. Bread machines. You know, those cheap things you can find for $10 at a yard sale or goodwill. Normally missing their ‘keys’ (the part in the bowl that mixes). Well, I’ve bought two of them over the years and both of them failed in the exact same way: the bearing in the mix bowl seized up. The first time it took over a year to fail; best $10 ever. The second time it failed after just 3 uses. Between gas, time, and unit cost, I’m out around $40 for the two units and they lasted, on average, 6 months each. So for $80 per year, roughly the cost of a new, high end, bread machine, I can keep buying other people’s used machines, and hoping the stores have one when mine fails.

Or, I can drop around $400 on a refurbed Kitchenaid mixer with a DC motor and metal gears. …For fucking pizza dough. That’s the part that kills me. “Mix by hand!” I did that, for almost a year. I’m sick of mixing by hand. I keep telling myself that if I ever marry someone who likes to bake they will be over the moon to come to my place and cook. I also try to say that if I have the tools, then maybe I’ll try to duplicate Claire’s efforts on making a cake, or something else Bon Apatite does. The biggest thing…I just want something I can repair, and is worth it to repair if it breaks. But overall, I want something that won’t break. I want something solid. I want to solve this problem one time.

At $80 per year, I would need to keep making pizzas for lunch for at least 2.5 more years in order to break even on my investment. …yea. I can do that. Even if my math is way off and it averages out to $40/year to buy used machines, 5 years of pizzas is totally reasonable. Ok. Fuck it. I’m allowed to buy it. Now I just have to get over the sticker shock of $400.

It’s funny to me…I could buy this as a gift for a girl I liked but who didn’t care about me. But buying it for myself? It’s like pulling my own teeth out. Gah. Why do I work this way? Oh, right, I know. Because I was raised by a family that only spent money when they absolutely had to and that has actually served me really well. I’m retired at 31 because of that. Ok, so I shouldn’t be upset about this. But…I am. Because that fear of being poor is always there, even though I’ve never been poor a day in my life. Just breathe man. Just breathe. It’s going to be ok. You’ll unravel yourself eventually. But really, you’ll just learn to be at peace with who you are. Some things just are. Not everything has to be understood, reasoned, explained, or justified. It’s ok to just exist. It’s ok. Wooo-sah. Wooooooo-sah.