I khop, take you, KitchenAid 610 Professional Mixer in Empire Red.....

It could work, couldn't it?

I mean, I could marry a mixer and be perfectly happy, don't you think?

Even if you think I'm spewing nothing but crazy talk, be a friend and humor me by smiling and saying yes. Yes, of course.

Ah, that's good. Thanks.

Of course, I'm kidding. Hear that, Mom? No need to sound the alarm just yet. But there is a distinct reason why every time I pass by my beautiful new KitchenAid Professional 610 Stand Mixer in Empire Red I have a fleeting mental dialogue similar to the one described above. It's because, well, I thought by the time I finally owned this beast of a machine, this masterpiece of red metal, this mixer that is the culinary equivalent of a jackhammer in terms of how much of a Martha Stewart badass I feel like when I rev this thing up, I thought, well, that I'd already be married by then.

.....aaaaaaand I'm definitely not.

Lest you feel a hint of that knot in your stomach, a slight panic of "oh no, khop, please stop. She's going to start whining about being unmarried, and I'm so embarrassed for her while reading this because doesn't she know that she's supposed to pretend she's not at all bothered by it, even though she is 32 (yikes), and I can't believe she's about to whine about being unmarried all over the internet, yes she has a mixer, but she has completely lost every shred of her dignity, not to mention her mind," have no fear. I'm going to do no such thing.

Thanks for the vote of confidence, btw.

I will tell you why I have these fleeting thoughts, though, as I think it's kind of cool and empowering, and I wonder if any of my five(? up from 3?) readers have ever experienced something similar.

I come from a family of three daughters of which I am the youngest. My parents, two very fair, equitable and practical individuals, believed that a little assembly line-style parenting went a long way in terms of minimizing disputes and accusations of preferential treatment of one daughter over another. This "if X was given to Daughter #1 at Y time, then X, or comparable good/service/privilege should also be given to Daughters 2 and 3 at times relative to Y, lest mutiny and chaos erupt," approach gave rise, mostly by accident, to a household of milestones. It was cool for me, the youngest, to have these traditions because I knew more or less what to expect. I would be allowed to get my driver’s license exactly one month after turning sixteen. How much my parents were willing to fork over for college tuition was known well in advance of the applications going in. For my twenty-first birthday, I would be getting a cedar hope chest. College graduation, a car, etc.

And then, there were the knives. In addition to the modest but lovely weddings my parents threw for my two older sisters, each couple was presented with a beautiful set of Cutco knives as a wedding present. My God, were those knives gorgeous, each of them housed in its own specific slot in the cedar storage block that sat proudly on the kitchen counter. For goodness sake, I’ve seen the Cutco demonstration; you can cut an old leather boot with one of those things! Like any hopeful girl does, I dreamed of the day I would walk down the isle towards my beloved… and my very own set of Cutco knives. Ahhh, all the things I would chop.

A few years ago, I experienced a rather dramatic change in life direction, as I went from being unhappily coupled and on the brink of starting an unhappy marriage to being single. Despite this change being primarily positive, I went through an extensive mourning period, adjusting and plotting a new course for my life. One piece I took rather hard was the perceived loss of my knives. They had seemed so close, just around the corner, and now, gone. It looked as though I’d be using my Target-brand knives for the foreseeable future. Oh, the horror.

A few months later, as my birthday approached, my mother and I had a rather scandalous idea. What if, instead of waiting for a groom to show up, I got my knives now, as a birthday present? Sure, it’s breaking with tradition, but if you’re the last one in the line, does tradition really matter that much? There was a small part of me that felt like I was selling out, and that by getting the knives early I was ever so slightly entertaining the notion that someday my prince would, in fact, not come.

But then I realized that one thing has nothing to do with the other. So, I got over it and decided to do me some choppin’….

Even more of a rebel, I requested that we switch it up even further. Instead of an entire set of Cutcos, I downgraded in numbers and upgraded in brand, welcoming two gorgeous Shun Ken Onions (the 5” paring and the granddaddy 8” chef) and one sturdy Wusthof 9” serrated bread knife into my kitchen.

Oh the glorious chopping frenzy. The fact that within five minutes of having the chef’s knife out of the box my mother and I had managed to knick the kitchen table and slice one finger is really neither here nor there.

And so, what does the mixer have to do with this? There is no mixer-related family tradition, although the idea of it certainly has its roots in them. Simply put, although I have wanted one forever, I have put off the mixer acquisition for years, because of this firm notion in my head that it was something I would register for. The mixer had become more than a mixer for me; it had become a symbol, a rite of passage. The groom was still nameless and faceless, but damnit if I didn’t see a mixer now waiting for me at the alter where the knives once stood.

Until this year, when as my birthday once again approached, I looked about at the landscape of my life and decided that about the only thing missing in it was my mixer. Beautiful new house, rewarding job, phenomenal friends and family and a big empty space on my countertop that only a mixer could fill. So I called my mom and said, “The thing is, mom, I make a lot of gluten free bread…” The rest is history.

There’s an adjustment, I think, one goes through when you pass into your 30’s still single. Meeting your mate early means transitioning to a different level of adulthood with a partner as opposed to on your own, and there are many things that unconsciously feel unnatural if done before that partner shows up. Like we’re doing them out of order or something. A first home purchase and getting organized about retirement are two big examples. A mixer and some knives are seemingly smaller but symbolically large ones for me.

A little bit of waiting is OK, I suppose. After all, as satisfying and empowering as it is to take the horse by the reigns and charge past each of these milestones by myself, refusing to put life on hold, it is bittersweet. Partially because of the nagging concern that he’ll never show up. But also because each one represents another first my future “him” and I won’t have, because I’ll already have had it. There comes a point, however, where waiting any longer becomes silly, and treading water turns into sinking. I know a guy my age currently living in his father’s basement. Several times home ownership has come up in conversation, and his comment always is, “I’ve never really thought about buying a house before, because I’d always assumed I’d have the wife first, then the house.”

My advice to him? You’re 33. Buy the house.

Bakin’ the bread, and slicin’ it up,

khop