I'm so jealous, and not for it to be used as a composter, but just for more mudane jobs such as mixing compost together with some other substance (topsoil, peat, sand, etc.) before it's spread across your lawn in a topdressing... You really can't be it. My father is a brick mason so my mother, whenever she would overseed the lawn would throw a couple cubic feet of topsoil into the mixer along with however many pounds of seed she planned on using and would mix it all up so that the seed was thoroughly mixed into the topdressing...and she would then just lay that out over the lawn, seeds already mixed in...

Kristin S, I agree, the Ankarsrum (aka DLX/Electrolux) isn't something one buys on a whim! It will last, and most cooks pass theirs down to daughters and sons... I've a friend who dearly loves her KA and wouldn't trade it for anything... Re: the issues you mentioned with your KA, here's a photo I found after my first unboxing of the Ankarsrum... kinda shows you the inside and the most commonly used attachments (2) I use for mixing breads, brownies, and cookie dough's. This shows the 'roller' and 'scraper' attachment: You can move the roller away from the bowl side and fix it to any distance from the bowl side and tighten that setting easily, but the roller will still move outward into the bowl's middle freely on it's own helping to mix/incorporate. Sometimes, if there's a little something (and it's always precious little) in the middle that's not mixing, I just manually move the roller (holding the chrome arm on top) over to the middle, then let it go, so it moves back. It's a bit odd initially, using something called a 'roller' to mix ingredients... but it does an amazing job incorporating unbeaten eggs, sugar, flour, extracts, raisins and choc chips (without crushing - no more hand mixing chips and raisin!), anything, really. The bowl rotates constantly at the speed setting of your choice, it never stops unless you turn it off. I add ingredients as it's moving, and flours never puff out, or get on anything... easy cleanup, too! You've lots of open room to add ingredients even from large bowls. I always make sure my butter or cream cheese is super soft (for the roller and especially the whisks and cake whisk attachments. There is no lifting of anything... not until your batter/dough is mixed. You un-tighten the roller arm, it moves out of the way on it's own, and you lift the bowl out. You can see the scraper is naturally sitting against the side of the bowl. The scraper gets "everything" and I rarely move it unless there's a bit of unmixed floor or ingredient on the scraper, at which point I just move it gently out toward the middle of the bowl, then let it naturally go back to the bowl side. Now, if you need to whip egg whites first, you'd instead use the clear bowl and use the whipping attachment instead. If you are making a thin batch of cookie dough or a cake that's thinner, again, you'd use the clear bowl but with the cake whisks. The clear bowl does not turn on it's own, it stays stationary while the whisks move. Here's a photo of the dials.. One changes speed (variable so any speed, plus the high speed is well, very high! It's not got labels, so you basically just go by how it feels and looks to you. The other turns it on, and if you turn it past the 'on' it acts as a timer as well... you can walk away if you need to and it will shut itself off. Another nice thing is the scraper, a simple plastic spatula that fits into the grooves of the 'roller', making batter scraping so easy! Weight: it's no lightweight at 19 lbs, but I think the KA weighs in at 25-29 lbs. Height: I've got 18" between counter top and cabinets... easy fit. Noise: You can hear it, but it runs on a belt drive... it's much quieter than any mixer I've used. I ordered mine from Pleasant Hill Grain, and after it arrived they sent me an email with a .pdf to print out explaining attachments to use, speed control conversions, etc. So, yes, a learning curve, but it's not a huge learning curve : ) There are a multitude of attachments also, but you turn the Ankarsrum on it's side to use most of them. I think the KA is great for many people, but has drawbacks. The primary drawback of the Ankarsrum is the price, IMO.

(Like dcarch said) The CFP 5A does not have a separate on-off switch. It starts when you turn the bowl lid to the fully closed and latched position. That presses a rod in the bowl, which pushes a micro switch on the base of the machine (round red or black recessed button, right under where the bowl's base sits, at the back of the machine). When you rotate the lid to away from the fully closed position, the motor shuts off. The bowl must be correctly seated and clicked into place. This is actually the same mechanism used in later Cuisinarts work, but they added an on-off-pulse switch. You can add such a switch to a CFP 5A, I've done it to mine. You can test the functioning of the micro switch, by depressing it with a chopstick end. There must be NO BLADE ON THE MACHINE!!! because the motor will start spinning the moment you touch that micro switch, and a mounted blade WILL cut off your fingers. It can easily take them off before you know what happened. The CFP 5A is a good machine. It was made in the mid-1970s by Robot Coupe of France, the inventor of the food processor. The only thing to watch out for, is that the stems on the discs can be fragile (40 year old plastic) and split under pressure, especially if you get a hunk of something jammed between lid and disc. The bowls, blades, discs, etc show up on eBay for pretty cheap. None of the accessories interchange with the later Cuisinart DLC models. The accessories from a similar-era Magimix or KitchenAid may fit. Compared to the DLC models, the motor is a little bit less powerful on the CFP 5A, which only matters if you are kneading a lot of dough.

What a great thread - I have the original white, lift bowl Model K 5A. And I have to confess that many times over the years I've been tempted by the siren call of those glorious cobalt, pistachio and and chrome machines. But I have a strong sentimental attachment to my Kitchen Aid and I still remember the day my husband and I purchased it. While waiting to have the tires changed on our 1971 Plymouth Duster we wandered across the parking lot to a Best Products store. He spied me eyeing the mixer and encouraged me to buy it. I thought it was too extravagant - we were living on one income and he still had 2 more years of med school. But we had been scrimping and watching every penny and DH was working in the lab on weekends so he bought it for me. I still have the receipt, I use it as a bookmark inside my Joy of Cooking. That was 11/20/1976 and I paid $164.89 for it. And it's also the first thing I look for when I check a bridal registry - it's my favorite gift. Maire