Free is a Very Good Price

I have a KitchenAid stand mixer, one of the tilt-head kinds. I bought it about seven or maybe even eight years ago, and love it. Mostly I use it to knead bread dough, but I've also used it for:

• making pasta (with the pasta roller attachment)
• applesauce (with the fruit/veg strainer - no more peeling or coring apples required!)
• cakes
• whipping cream
• cookie dough
• grinding meat (with the grinder attachment)

It's a great kitchen appliance and while they're expensive, they're incredibly durable and well built.

If I've had a kvetch about mine, it's that the bowl is perhaps a little small for my usual bread dough batch. More often than not, it's fine, but sometimes the dough creeps up the dough hook and I have to stop and scrape.

For years I've been collecting Air Miles. Every once in a while I check to see if there are any rewards I'm willing to be parted from my points for, but a lot of the rewards haven't interested me, and despite the opportunity for "free flights" using points, you're still on the hook for all the taxes and surcharges and booking flights on points is a PITA (pain in the (_(_)).

However, just recently, they had the KitchenAid Professional 600 on in pearl grey. I thought about it and by the time I decided to act, they were gone. DOH! However, I've been keeping my eye out and lo, they now have them in white.

I've ordered one. 4600 air miles well spent! I'm looking forward to using it.