The Bamix, RIP

After over twelve years of loyalty and companionship in random reunions of cooking opportunities and personality-laden eaters, the Bamix whirs no more.

I don't really know why it came to be called The Bamix.

I don't know why, this time, the act of whipping butter was too strenuous.

But in the course of making shortbread cookies with dried cranberries (in the shapes of moose, bears, whales and the State of Alaska), The Bamix burned up the last of its gumption halfway into the process of creaming the butter and sugar. I held on to it for a few days afterwards, plugging it in now and then just to see if it might have revived itself with a little rest. But it stayed silent and unresponsive and last night I officially gave up the hope.

Perhaps not with a tear, but certainly with great nostalgia, I deposited The Bamix into the garbage on my way to work today.

****

The Bamix was a hand-held blender that my mother gave me as a college-house-warming gift. It "whirred." Its heyday, looking back, was back during the College Days of pasta dinners in my Little Red House where it was an integral component of all of those dinners, some planned, some not, some with tartacious purposes, some merely to celebrate the gathering of peoples for the annual night of Melrose Place. But even after the heyday it continued to be an integral component of my kitchen. So, the Bamix era started in Spokane, Washington but waited for me while I lived in Italy, reunited with me in Seattle, and then travelled with me to Washington, DC and New York and, finally, to Alaska.

Maybe it's a sign that I am old enough to invest in a stand-alone mixer, or something like that. But I am thinking about interpreting my loss as an opportunity to learn to cope with big bowls, wooden spoons, and the timeless gumption of mixing by hand.