The Cookbook Ordeal!

We have been married now for two weeks. We received several gift cards to our favorite home store whose initials are BBB. So with our 20% off coupon we headed for the appliance section. First on the list of kitchen must haves for our kitchen was a KitchenAid stand mixer in chrome to match our appliances and our Caphalon Contemporary Nonstick cookware. We debated between the home model and the professional model and in the end opted for the home model since we were not planning on doing anything industrial or commercial.



The KitchenAid came with a small cookbook and owner's manual. Not very think and only 1/3 of it was in English so I surfed the net looking for a cookbook just for stand mixers. There isn't a lot to choose from. I think I found three total. Two books were from the same author and the second of the two was a Second Edition that just came out September 2008. What timing! The Mixer Bible Second Edition by Meridith Deeds and Carla Snyder, Robert Rose Inc., 2008 was my pick. However, the latest and greatest books are most often difficult to get your hands on. Checking the local Borders and Barnes and Noble I found 1 book in San Antonio, Texas. I put it on hold and picked it up a few hours later.



Now I love to collect books and it is my opinion that a book that costs $27.95 should be a hardback or spiral bound. WRONG. It is a soft cover glue spine.


After thumbing through the book for a few days I decided to have the spine cut off, drilled and spiral bound so it would stay open to the page when I was cooking out of it. I dropped it off at Kinko, explained what I wanted done and was promised it would be ready in 24 hours.

The next day on the way home from work I stopped to pick it up. First they couldn't find it. Second they wanted me to pay before I looked over the work. I refused and looked at the book. The spiral was too small and caused the book to bulge. Once color photo page was drilled along the edge and was no longer secured in the spiral, and the last drill hole at the bottom of all the pages was only half there causing the little pieces to catch up and fold on each other. THEY RUINED MY HARD TO GET $27.95 BOOK!!!!!


I expressed my dissatisfaction with the quality of work and they have agreed to replace the book. Of course I had purchased the only copy in town and had to order it online. My cousin has given me the name of a mom and pop shop who will rebind my book with care.


About The Mixer Bible


The book is excellent. The format and information are easy to follow and understand. There is a huge selection of recipes that include recipes for the standard attachments that come with most mixers and the sold separately attachments. (When we purchased our mixer we mailed in for the free ice cream maker attachment.) There are few pictures in the book and while the pictures are wonderful to look at they are located in sections a few pages at a time and not scattered throughout the book near the recipe depicted. I personally prefer cookbooks with lots of color photos with instructional photos, guess that is why I like these blogs so much. Since stand mixers are not all the same brand and are not all set up with the same speed controls this book explains the difference and how to calibrate the recipes to your machine. As a note - the recipes are set up for the KitchenAid mixer. But if you have another brand it is still a very usable book.