In news:rec.food.cooking, "kag" > posted on
Mon, 17 Nov 2003 14:05:07 -0500:

> i am looking at getting (someday) the medium heavy duty one
> (with the arms that clip onto the bowl) i like the fact they
> can be used to make bread dough and sausage and pasta etcetc
> with extra accessories. or are there any better ones out
> there i am not aware of?

I love my Kitchen-Aid stand mixer. I think it was $299. However,
here's a word of advice. Get a Kitchen-Aid model that has the little
twist clamps to hold the bowl in. If you get the kind that has the bowl
that twists into the base, when kneading or paddling things like large
batches of cookie dough or even bread dough, you'll find yourself
calling the new governor of California to help you untwist that bowl out
of the base. That mixer keeps twisting it on in there until it's so
tight you really have to hug it and brace yourself against something to
get it out.

I've also heard that in recent years, to reduce costs, Kitchen-Aid has
been using plastic gears in the mechanics of the mixer instead of metal
gears as they used to. I don't know if that's really true or not
because I've never taken mine apart to check. That's just what some guy
told me.

I'm going to get a cheese grater attachment for mine. I hope it's made
out of metal because the crappy plastic ones on the consumer market have
to be replaced every other month because they crack or strip out.

Damaeus