Everyone carries with them a

Everyone carries with them a list of things that they would like to have, I think, this secret list of wistful belongings. At the very top of mine - not surprisingly, I suspect - was a stand mixer, which I have wanted for YEARS. Stand mixers say Serious Baker, I think, and how I WANTED one. Every Christmas, my husband would get a list from me of the books and various odds and ends that I wanted, to dole out to various interested family members and you may gather, of course, that a stand mixer featured prominently on every year's list. If I was more mature, I'd likely have said an offhand "Oh, whatever you get me will be more than fine", but I've never claimed to be particularly mature.

Look what Cuisinart sent me on Friday:

So this year, whatever you want to get me for Christmas is FINE.

And what else did I do this weekend, besides having longheld wishes gratifyingly satisfied? Well, I was SICK. I had felt sort of off for much of the week, a combination of having mysteriously lost my generally astounding appetite and feeling vaguely headachey and tired and if you read my blog on Saturday you already know how I spent Friday (short answer: throwing up.). I was SO sick that I lost seven pounds in two days, which sounds grand in writing but in real life? Oh, not so much.

So anyhow, by Sunday I was recovered enough to spend the evening cheerfully couched with a large stack of brand new December magazines, the most cheerful pastime that I can even think of. The bonhomie induced by the holiday-themed magazines makes me generously inclined to magazines I generally pass over - like Bon Appetit, which informed me last night that Vienna has a "vibrant mod cuisine" ("Oh, who DOESN'T know that?" said my husband, when I informed him of Vienna's vibrant modishness.) and included a menu for a grim God-Is-Dead Christmas dinner. ("Wild Mushroom Ragout on Crispy Polenta with Comte Cheese"? WHERE IS THE STUFFING?)

It also included an interview on the very last page with a young author. I can't imagine that being interviewed by the terrifyingly pretentious folks at Bon Appetit would be a comfortable experience, needing the combination of extreme amounts of the Right Sort of world travel, culinary sophistication and the general air of formidable wealth. The young author - who I won't name out of kindness, since everyone googles themselves - did her very best, saying that the three writers she would like to have for dinner would be Virginia Woolf, Henry James and FREAKING DOSTOEVSKY. What a coincidence! Those would be the three writers I'd pretty much least like to have for dinner - Virginia all droopy and depressed and eating a few leaves of lettuce, probably, Henry with his ferociously bad digestion and Dostoevsky wolfing everything down and speaking only Russian. What a grand evening THAT would be, with me encouraging Virgina Woolf to just have one bite of the delicious wild mushroom ragout and Henry James letting out apocalyptic belches. Oh, and Dostoevsky glaring at everyone. Fun.

I don't know WHAT I'd answer to the three authors question - offhand, I'd say C.S. Lewis, who was apparently a nice, pleasant man and someone I find theologically inspiring, Agatha Christie, because I think she'd be fun, and Emily Bronte, because I think she needed a cheerful outing. And who would you choose?

Mostly, though, I'm not into speculative (and deceased) dining companions. Mostly, I'm just glad to be feeling well enough to make cookies for - and with - my three children, and very delighted to be using my splendid new stand mixer which is, I think, a very cheerful state of affairs, being happy with daily state of your own life and the real people around you.

Hands off, buddy. They're not gluten-free.

Comments

[lisa b]

Nice Mixer!!! Congrats.
I'm not into having dead people to dinner either
L

[haley-o]

Oh, now why can't Cuisinart sponsor MY BLOG, too.... I want one of those!!! Hmm... I don't know who I'd want to dine with....

Mary Shelley
Oscar Wilde
Charles Dickens

All of them would intimidate me too much to eat, though!!!

[ali]

Salinger. definitely.
jonathan safran foer.
stephen king.

i think :)

love the lovely Cuisinart. (dripping with envy!)

[Michelle]

How cool that they sent you a stand mixer! I bet you were just overjoyed to finally get what had been on your Christmas list for years! Early Christmas for you! :)

[Thea]

Oh, C.S. Lewis was right at the top of my list, though I don't know about his British taste buds - any reference to food in his essays seems to involve boiled things, like cabbage. I would also invite Madeleine L'Engle, whose food references are altogether more appetizing and, for the sake of an excellent dinner discussion, Mark Twain.

Last year for Christmas, I was profoundly blessed with a KitchenAid stand mixer and, oh my goodness, did my quality of living ever improve. It was a few full months, I think, before I stopped walking out of the kitchen while the mixer was running to announce to the living room at large that "hey! My cookie dough is mixing and I'm out here! Doing other things! With both of my free hands!"

Marvelous. May you put many delicious miles on that mixer.

[elizabeth]

Jane Austen
LM Montgomery
Nick Hornby
Alistair MacLeod
Mordechai Richler
Joseph Boyden

OK, so my dinner party got a little bigger than it was supposed to...can I borrow your mixer?

[Steph]

I have a KitchenAid mixer and love it- this year I am praying for the Cuisinart ice cream maker sooo badly. Enjoy!

[Kate Diamond]

Most girls got keepsake jewelry for college graduation. I asked for--and received--a stand mixer.

Authors. So tough, now that I've read the list. Ugh. It's sort of like planning my wedding... only so much space, and these are all the people I wish to invite:

C.S. Lewis
Jane Austen
Shakespeare
L.M. Montgomery
Christopher Moore (he of "Lamb" fame)
Beverly Cleary
J.K. Rowling

[Kate Diamond]

Most girls got keepsake jewelry for college graduation. I asked for--and received--a stand mixer.

Authors. So tough, now that I've read the list. Ugh. It's sort of like planning my wedding... only so much space, and these are all the people I wish to invite:

C.S. Lewis
Jane Austen
Shakespeare
L.M. Montgomery
Christopher Moore (he of "Lamb" fame)
Beverly Cleary
J.K. Rowling

[Kate Diamond]

Most girls got keepsake jewelry for college graduation. I asked for--and received--a stand mixer.

Authors. So tough, now that I've read the list. Ugh. It's sort of like planning my wedding... only so much space, and these are all the people I wish to invite:

C.S. Lewis
Jane Austen
Shakespeare
L.M. Montgomery
Christopher Moore (he of "Lamb" fame)
Beverly Cleary
J.K. Rowling

[Kate Diamond]

Most girls got keepsake jewelry for college graduation. I asked for--and received--a stand mixer.

Authors. So tough, now that I've read the list. Ugh. It's sort of like planning my wedding... only so much space, and these are all the people I wish to invite:

C.S. Lewis
Jane Austen
Shakespeare
L.M. Montgomery
Christopher Moore (he of "Lamb" fame)
Beverly Cleary
J.K. Rowling

[nomotherearth]

Shakespeare
LM Montgomery
and probably
Rowling

I'm afraid to admit I wouldn't know what to use a stand mixer for. Is it different tnan using a bowl and a hand mixer??

[Rosebud & Papoosie Girl]

I don't have any mixer fantasies, but I am so glad you love yours. As for the dinner guests, so many of the ones listed sound good.

I am too tired to think of my own at the moment...I'll get back to you.

[Painted Maypole]

shakespeare, of course.

as for the other two? who cares. I'd be in the corner talking to shakespeare. Back off, you usurpers.

i can't believe you didn't have a stand mixer! I got one when we got married and use it occassionally. it clearly would have gotten more use in your home!

and there is nothing wrong with asking for what you want. it is a long held tradition in my family, and one my husband's should have adopted long ago, or at least before I met him.

[AlphaDogMa]

Well I guess I'm a freakin' poser as I've had a KitchenAid stand mixer for 2 years and now I wonder if I've let it down. Does it resent my infrequent attempts at marshmellows, my too sugary versions of cream cheese icing, does it grow tired of being used to churn out only cookies and waffle batter? Oh, dear sweet Nigella forgive me.

WHAT? Yes, her name is Nigella. Don't try and tell me you don't name all your appliances. If you haven't already settled on a name, I vote for Dostoevsky.

Oh, the literary people to sup with: Marian Keyes, JK Rowling, and Bill Bryson.

[Badness Jones]

Hubs finally gave me the KitchenAid stand mixer for Christmas last year, after numerous years of my whining. He's put on 10 pounds of happiness since....

[amreen]

congrats on your mixer! it's gorgeous. i too have fantasized about owning one, but unlike you, i don't know what i'd do with it! i love to cook, but baking is still foreign territory to me. do you ever watch the barefoot contessa - i love the ina uses her mixer - makes everything look effortless with a "pound of butter" mmmm....

[Kyla]

Jodi Picoult, her writing makes me feel like I'd like reading her blog if she had one...which makes me think I'd like her in person. Is that weird?

Austen.

Beck.

[Amanda]

three authors to dinner, hmmmmm...
1. C.S. Lewis- i read Shadowlands and fell in love....
2.Phillipa Gregory
3. Beatrix Potter

Enjoy the mixer, I love mine....

[Pieces]

Congratulations on your lovely mixer! If anyone will put it to great use, I know it will be you! Have fun with it.

[bubandpie]

The trick would be to make sure you invited OLD Agatha Christie - the fun, comfortable-in-her-own-skin Agatha Christie Mallowan version, not the painfully shy younger version. Plus she could talk all about living on an archaeological dig in Mesopotamia. Fun.

[Susanne]

I'm hoping for a Quisinart ice cream maker.

Your stand mixer is just lovely! All shiny and oh, so modern looking. I bet it makes real good cookies too. I think I'd go for C.S. Lewis too. And maybe Lucy Maud Montgomery. And Karen Kingsbury.

I feel the same as you with the Bon Appetite Christmas dinner. What do you mean there's no stuffing?

[jenkneebee]

hahaha! Your mixer is quite lovely. I'm hoping to get a nice big cuisinart food processer this year. And the three people I'd want to have to dinner:

Jane Austen
Louisa May Alcott
Kurt Vonnegut

[Lisa Milton]

Coming up with only three writers is tough.

Joshilyn Jackson (love her books, love her blog more), Chuck Palahniuk (he could bring his boston terriers) and Stephen King (he seems very nice, despite writing scary stuff).

Then, I'd have to make it a habit, to squeeze everybody else in...

[Becky]

Wow! I need a job like yours. Getting a free mixer like that is worth every penny you DON'T make.

I am so glad you are feeling better. Too bad you have already had your Thanksgiving or you could use that fabulous and powerful machine to bake something for the holidays. Wanna do mine for me????

[Fairly Odd Mother]

I don't think I've matured past 15, so I'd pick Shel Silverstein, Dr. Seuss and Judy Blume.

Lovely mixer. And, I'm glad you are feeling better.

[Marta]

That is a great looking mixer!! I'm sure you will have lots of fun with it. I enjoyed your funny blog. And I'll put you down as my 1st, 2nd and 3rd choices for my writer dinner guests (but you have to do the cooking)!

[Linda]

So writing for Kitchen Party got you a hand blender, a pizza oven and now a stand mixer? Do they pay you as well? Good deal!

[Kathryn Scheibmeir]

It would depend on what I'm cooking but, I guess I would go with Bill Waterson, because we all LOVE Calvin and Hobbes around here. Fannie Flagg, because I'm Southern through and through and love her humor. Finally, Laura Inglalls Wilder because I would really like to ask her a few questions about Cap Garland *snicker*. Oh, I love the idea of this and plan to ask my boys this very question tonight at dinner. Maybe I'll do a post based on their reponses!

[tracey]

WAit. A. Minute.

You got that mixer for FREE? Exactly how DID you accomplish this? Or are you really just THAT cool???

Don't mind me. Sour grapes. My sister broke my mixer a few years ago in a Snickerdoodle debaucle...

[Mary Beth]

How do you get people to send you all those wonderful toys? I love my kitchen aid and I will never make cookies without it again. You can just crank them out by the dozens:)

For dinner, I'd invite Mark Twain as I think he shared my sense of humor, AA Milne because I'm a huge Pooh fan, and JK Rowling because I still have a lot of questions about Harry Potter.

[meredith]

You are so funny. I am drooling over your new stand mixer, you are going to be able to whip up some good cookin' with that. As for inviting a not dead author for lunch, I'd choose Sue Grafton. In between solving crime, her character Kinsey Milhone is always talking about food. I like people who talk about food :)

[Julie Bo Boolie]

I'd go with

-Nathaniel Hawthorne whom I think of as being just slightly wicked because I think he just might bring along a fun date who'd be into putting us into trances and calling upon the spirits of the dead.
-Jane Austen because well Pride and Predjudice... hello???
-Edgar Allen Poe because once Nathaniel's date starts the seance he'd be right at home!

[trg247]

A little off topic but not really. I just read through a number of your blogs and its no wonder people send you shiny things. Well done

[magpie]

I got a Kitchenaid as a wedding present, from my mother-in-law, after I asked if I could borrow hers so as to be able to make the cake. I thought it was a pretty good roundabout way of asking for one!

I'm not sure who I'd like at the dinner table. I'll mull it over.

[Janet]

How did you score an awesome stand mixer when all I got were Crayola toddler markers?!!!! Oof, that sounded ungrateful. I hope the Crayola people aren't reading this (but I would love one of those for Christmas, too.)

I don't know which authors I would have for dinner but I think one would have to be Robert Munsch, so he could go and entertain the kids with his wild, animated storytelling whenever they crept down the stairs to spy on us and try to sneak potato chips.

[Nowheymama]

Somebody beat me to Dorothy Parker! Let's see, three who haven't been named yet:
Laura Ingalls Wilder
L.M. Montgomery
Peg Bracken :)
Now there's a combo.

[Suz]

Congratulations on that beautiful mixer! As far as the authors go, I'd have to invite Chaucer, second the Nick Hornby, and send an invite to Jennifer Weiner for good measure.

[Heidi]

Lucky!!

Well, I have a stand mixer already, so I shouldn't talk.

I'm not sure I want to have dinner with any dead people.

[Soul Fusion]

Jane Austen (even though she is predictable, for some reason I feel like we could relate but one of the Bronte sisters could slot in here as alternates)
Nick Hornby
Victor Hugo (but only after I did some serious cramming to dust off my college French)

As for the mixer. WOW! I am so jealous. You may even say seething in jealousy . . . I have wanted a stand mixer for ages. I even once wrote a post about how much I want a Kitchen Aid but now that I know Cuisinart makes this beautiful one that would so perfectly match my most prized possession - my Cuisinart food processor . . . I am coveting. Happy Baking!!!

[Kathryn]

Hmmm. Very interesting. I think I would pick Stephen King (but only if I got to bring my hubby along for protection) cuz I think it would be so creepy and bizarre having dinner with him. Dr. Seuss, cuz I'm still a kid at heart and he could lighten the mood with Mr. Creepy. And maybe Shakespeare just to throw in a touch of class and really confuse the crap out of me. ;)

[Aliki]

You are incredible, really--I couldn't agree with you more about those dinner guests. Especially Dostoevsky--ugh.

That stand mixer is gorgeous! Absolutely a thing of beauty.

[Cyndi]

Well, shoot! I got you a mixer for Christmas. Now I will have to think of something else! Hmm.. :)

[Mad Hatter]

Oscar Wilde
Tom Stoppard
Dorothy Parker

Lots of gin and trifle for dessert.

[christine]

i would bypass the writers considering my last outing with a few writers!

glad you got your mixer. we inherited my husband's grandmothers and i am in LOVE.

[Tracy]

I'm so jealous, even though I DO have a Kitchen Aid.

[chrissy]

Why does everyone think writers are so great to have over for dinner? Wouldn't speakers be more interesting?

As for the Bon Appetite Christmas dinner: the only thing I would eat in that sentence would be the cheese.

My son celebrated my purchase of a can of cranberry sauce with a DANCE in the grocery store. That's how refined we are.

[Sherri E.]

I finally got my stand mixer last year when our price club got a big shipment of industrial-looking Kitchen Aids in. I love love love it and use it almost every day-- mostly for yeast breads, which I love to eat but hate to knead.

Three writers to dinner? At this moment, they would be:
Wordsworth (my favorite Romantic-- not selfish or self-destructive, actually dwelt in domestic happiness rather than torrid incestuous writhings)
Mark Helprin
Jane Austen

Those are my English speaking fiction people, of course. There's the Greek Philosopher's circle, the Contemporary Theologian's Circle, etc...

[LoriD]

I'd love to answer your authors question, except I can't stop thinking about your mixer! It's beautiful and shiny and definitely says "professional baker". And, it would make my life complete.

[karen]

nice mixer, I accidently inherited one after my stepfather's mom passed - all her real family thought I was insane for being interested in it and they passed if off on my stay-at-home mom status. Still, I was so grateful my mom was there when they were about to toss it away! Mine is rather ancient, make mixes with power!

[kim from hiraeth]

I'd invite the Inklings to dinner:

JRR Tolkien
CS Lewis
Charles Williams

I would be content to cook and serve and listen in.

[slouching mom]

Oh, how wonderful, that mixer! It's in good hands.

Shakespeare, Austen, and Pepys. All cheerful sorts, I'd guess.

[Veronica Mitchell]

I am soooo with you on those authors. I enjoy Dostoyevsky's books, but definitely would not choose him as a dining companion.

[chelle]

OMG That mixer looks divine! I think you are right about people's ongoing list (I would like a super comfy chair!)
Glad you are feeling better.
Three writers for dinner .... Stephen King (can you imagine what a frightful meal!) Mo Williams (kid's author too funny) and hmmm Mark Kurlansky ... (he wrote a bunch of book my husband likes!)