My impossible choice: A kitchen Ferrari versus a retro model leaking motor oil

My late grandmother, a wonderful cook and pastry chef whom I loved dearly, had an acerbic tongue when it came to other people’s cooking, including that of her own children.

“Is it from a packet?” was her grandest insult upon tasting a cake baked by her progeny. She refused to believe we’d inherited her baking prowess, and felt the only plausible explanation for a good outcome – unless she was involved, of course – was that we had cheated with Betty Crocker cake mix.

Melissa Singer’s Kenwood mixer, handed down from her grandmother.

To be fair, the woman did bake at a higher level than us mere mortals. My mother’s angel cake never reached the lofty heights of my grandmother’s, and I’ve never tasted an apple strudel quite like hers. Whenever I climbed the steps to her and my grandfather’s home, the whirring of her 1970s Kenwood mixer always sparked joy, even when it was employed to mince livers for her homemade pate, eggs for an appetiser traditionally served on Jewish holidays, or beef for her delicious kreplach (Yiddish for dumplings).

We’d spend hours, talking – or, rather, yelling, such was the mixer’s volume – as the balloon whisk or paddle attachment spun round and round. Occasionally, Nanna would shut off the motor to scrape the bowl or taste the mixture, the TV suddenly blaring in the temporary silence. And when she was done, the opportunity to lick the attachments clean before they were washed and set back in their place was too good to resist. Well, maybe except on liver day.

Sometimes, I’d ask how she made whatever dish was forming in the mixing bowl, but she was usually evasive. “Oh, it’s just a bit of this and that,” she’d say. By not sharing her recipes, I think she thought she was keeping us closer; we’d need her more.

After my grandfather’s death 12 years ago, my grandmother moved into a retirement village, and I never saw her use the mixer again. Recognising it had been idle for some time, my mother thought I should have it, and urged me to keep up my love of baking. When my grandmother died in early 2020, I was glad I was the one who got to guard the mixer.

I pulled it out during COVID lockdowns, and during many baking sessions – banana bread shared with neighbours, my now husband’s iso-birthday carrot cake – I would think of Nanna and how she used baking and cooking to communicate love. And not only to her family; she and her friends would lead massive cook-ups for dinner dances, as well as meals for the sick and needy from the commercial kitchens of the social club where postwar immigrant Jews would gather to play cards, talk and have a place to unburden themselves from the horrors that bound many of their origin stories. I liked to think that cooking was one way she healed.

However, the mixer and I have a love-hate relationship. It’s heavy, the paddle doesn’t quite reach the bottom of the bowl, and it occasionally leaks motor oil, something I learnt when I accidentally licked some off my finger, mistaking it for honey.

But it has also brought me great joy. I used it to bake my daughter’s first birthday cake, a giraffe-shaped beast of a thing that Mum and I spent hours creating. And I love that I can throw in some egg whites and walk away for five minutes, something my trusty hand-mixer doesn’t allow.

Recently, I was presented with an impossible dilemma. Mum texted: “I am upgrading my mixer to something lighter. Would you like my KitchenAid?” Any sane daughter would say yes, as I did, but it tugged at my heart. No one really needs two mixers.

The shiny Ferrari mixer – red, of course – is now in my walk-in pantry, and I’ve moved the Kenwood to the top shelf, a task that required a ladder and some serious muscle. I’ve often thought about taking it for a service, but just like my plan to get my first wedding dress cleaned 18 years ago, I might never get around to it. Still, I just can’t bear to let it go.

The other day, I had a little peek on eBay, mainly to try to date Nanna’s mixer for this article. I saw one for $110. I quickly shut the browser window. As old, heavy and leaky as it is, I don’t think I will ever be able to part with Nanna’s mixer – it’s one of the last things I have that gives me such a tangible reminder of her food, her home and her love. And each time I walk down the baking aisle at the supermarket and see the Betty Crocker packets, I laugh. Over her dead body.

Melissa Singer is national fashion editor of The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald.

The Opinion newsletter is a weekly wrap of views that will challenge, champion and inform your own. Sign up here.