Good topic- A friend and I were shopping on Saturday for a group gift for a bridal shower. The bride registered at Macy's for lots of kitchen stuff- a bad idea if you have BB&B as an alternative. (FYI-refunds and exchanges on a registry are easier there) Anyway she wanted the KA pasta, ice cream maker and meat grinder attachments. Problem was Macy's only had one of those in stock. I thought the ice cream maker was pricey compared to the Cuisinart, which I barely use now. The gift ended up being 3 place settings of her everyday china and the cheapest KA attachment. I was truly surprised at the cost of the KA items. I'm in agreement, an extra bowl is the best accessory!

I also have the KA ice cream attachment, and I like it because it easily makes two quarts and is relatively quiet. I bought a Cuisinart ice cream maker shortly after it got the KA attachment because it was on sale at Kohl's for ridiculously low price (which I can't remember), and I don't like it quite as much. For one, its limit is 1-1/2 quarts (less than most of my recipes), and it makes too much noise if I run it on my kitchen counter, since my kitchen is open to the living room. So I generally move it to the sewing room if I want to use it. Of the two, I like the KA better, but I haven't noticed that much difference in clean-up. The cuisinart has more parts to store, however, since it has to have its own motor. Like Terry, I store both mixing bowls in the freezer in the garage. Lars

I love my microplanes, but used one for frozen butter for pastry and the globules were too small. Might be fine for biscuits, but the box grater is better for pie. I have an easier time grating butter with the kind, below, where there's a bowl and a grater lid. You can put it on a silicone potholder or lock the solid lid on the bottom, to make it non-slip. That's a big help with butter. :) If you're having trouble holding on with the paper, try unwrapping it, and using a Ziploc bag instead. One of the thicker ones, not the sandwich bag. Whether the paper is hard to hold depends on what the paper is like. Another alternative, if you happen to be in the market for an immersion blender, is that they nowadays have models with a mini food processor. Ann T. in Cooking Forum posted about hers. If the feeder tube will take a stick of butter, it might be perfect. ;)

As an unrepentant kitchen gadget person, I tried to tell myself life wasn't worth living without a Kitchen-Aid. Years ago I had a Sunbeam stand mixer which went to appliance heaven after a horrible kitchen accident, and frankly, it was a blessing it went. It never was any good at yeast breads, which is what I purchased it for. After I won an International Recipe Contest for low-glycemic recipes and a nice cash prize, I kept looking at KA mixers to blow the winnings on. All the lovely colors - what's not to love. Then I was watching Emeril Lagassee one day on TV. His comment about how many KA mixers they burned up in the kitchen made me face reality - not that I shouldn't buy one, but that I really didn't need one. I do just fine with a hand-held electric mixer (like rhizo). My favorite mixers are a rotary OXO mixer (hand-powered) and a Danish Dough Whisk. I can whip egg whites faster in a stainless steel bowl with a whisk than the mixer. As a foods judge at fairs, I found when the popularity of Kitchen-Aid mixers went up, the quality of the baked goods went down substantially. They are great for creaming fat/sugar, but too many people over-mix quick breads, cakes, and other baked goods that don't require a lot of gluten-development. They were full of tunnels and holes, and had tough crust and crumb. Stand mixers are easy to use, but also easy to OVER use. Batters are really best mixed with a Danish Dough Whisk, not an electric mixer of any kind, taking care not to over-develop gluten. Even yeast breads are compromised because the KA tends to aerate the dough too much. A Zojirushi Bread Machine has been developed for making yeast breads, and has been shown, through side-by-side tests, to be superior to stand mixers. King Arthur Flour uses Zojirushi Bread Machines for making bread dough in their test kitchens. -Grainlady