Food Writing Prompt : Write about a kitchen gadget you or someone you love
bought late at night online or via TV or as a whim at the store. Did the gadget
work well or disappointingly?
It might be true that
life changed when I bought a Vitamix in the year 2000. It seemed like an enormous investment (and
also ridiculous that a contraption made of metal and plastic should cost as
much as a room in an apartment in New York City where I lived at the time) ,
but I was working a short term consulting job where I made $400/day and I
figured that the Vitamix (at $399) was
my reward for one day’s work.
It came in a big cardboard
box emblazoned with a photo of itself filled with whole fruits and vegetables,
surrounded by happy and healthy customers.
The contraption was covered in mounds of plastic and peanuts, a clear
polycarbonate blender jar and what felt like a 46 pound base with knobs and
wheels and an electric cord that wrapped around its innards.
I plugged it in and essentially
threw in the contents of my fridge’s Crisper drawers, just like the commercials
indicate and next thing I knew there was a glowing emerald green purple smoothie concoction in my blender jar which
quickly made its way into a glass and then down my gullet.
I was awash in a new world of possibility. I was not a cook-didn’t like or really know
how to create things in the kitchen, nor did I feel I had “enough time” to
dedicate to chopping and sauteeing. Yet I was determined to be as healthy as
humanly possible. Here was an enabling
mechanism that provided me with all the fruits
and vegetables and spirulina I desired mashed into a dizzying array of colorful
mush-piles. I wanted to eat endless
amounts of greenery and antioxidant rich foliage but my kitchen was about 2
feet by 4 feet in my New York City apartment which made producing anything of
culinary note a challenge. In fact the Vitamix took up ½ the counter space, but
I didn’t care because it’s magic produced soups, smoothies and items in between
for which I didn’t have an official title. That thing turned anything that once had any
kind of shape or form into a glob of thick liquid matter that I could pour into
any glass or bowl and be delighted by.
I tested the limits as
well of what exactly could be ground up in those violent whipping blades and
stopped short of putting a block of cement in just to see if I could create a
gravel smoothie.
The miracle is, it is
2017 and I still have the SAME Vitamix.
I did replace the plastic blender portion once after some mistaken accident
befell it. (Manufacturers: please note: I didn’t ever actually put a cement block
in it, I promise) I believe Vitamix will replace it for free if it stops
working within 5 years of the purchase date and in 2005 , I believe I was just
under the wire of my new device and have
been using it happily for the past 12 years.
It may not look as shiny and delightful as it did when I first opened
that Vitamix package and thumbed thru the laminated recipe booklet which
basically sat unopened beyond the first few weeks. When I looked at it recently (before I tossed
it into the recycle bin) it had ideas and recommendations that I’d never dream
of using now since the ingredients sound like they are from a 1980s cookbook of
my mom’s. Like mayo and sour cream to
make dips and spreads. Now they have branched
out into more “Whole Foods” recipes and non-dairy options like a vegan cashew
onion dip and a beet pico de gallo. Come
on Vitamix! Nice work! Atta boy! Atta girl!
Atta-non gender specific salutation!
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