Donna Maree Hanson, Author, Phd in Creative Writing

Yesterday, I started writing a blog post called Kitchen Goddess and although I talked about sourdough as an aside I didn’t really get to the point.

My birthday is this month and because of the Pandemic I had to cancel my planned birthday party at a local Ethiopian Restaurant. My big 60th. I was going to shout family and friends for a meal and feed them cake and fill their glasses with wine and/or lemonade!

While there is no party, I’m still having a birthday and I didn’t really have an idea of what I wanted for a present. My daughters asked me and well… I couldn’t think of anything until I was sitting around in bed on Thursday afternoon. It was one of the those days when it was raining outside and I’d played with the toddler for a few hours and was knackered and world events are just overwhelming at times. Then, an idea hit me. I’ve always wanted a decent stand mixer. Years ago, I bought this absolutely cheap, crap one from Big W or KMart and the beaters don’t even hit the bottom of the bowl and I have to put tea towels underneath to lift the bowl and scrap and basically get cranky.

I watched a few YouTube videos to pass the time and my favourite cupcake place did a review of three types of stand mixer. Previously, I had read Choice Magazine as well so I knew what was in my sights. So after about five seconds consideration and years of lusting, I went on an online hunt for a Kitchen Aid, Stand Mixer. Locally there was a sale of 40 per cent off at Kitchen Aid. Still, they were way pricey. I started talking to my partner and he agreed to go halves.

A special deal was free engraving. On my new stand mixer in almond shade will be my name ‘Donna Maree’ and the line underneath says ‘Kitchen Goddess’! Hence the title of my previous post. I don’t have photos yet as it has not been delivered. Obtaining a new stand mixer goes against the ‘I must stop baking pledge’ and minimal socialisation means it is hard to share product if I do. Yet, I can’t help thinking about what I would bake first. I usually do all my sour dough bread by hand but the Kitchen Aid stand mixer has a dough hook. My Thermomix does knead too but it’s not quite big enough for the double loaves I make. And I like to do it by hand over the space of a day as there is something very calming about the process of making sourdough. But there are other things to bake! And there’s cinnamon rolls! Absolutely deadly!

Here is a picture from Amazon.com.au of the almond colour.  It is listed there for $629 AU. If you are interested, here is the Link

The prices in the USA are half this. As they are made there it makes sense. USA Amazon has the red one for $279 US link is here.

This is one heavy beast so Matthew and I had to decide where we would put it given our limited bench space. We decided to move the air fryer because that’s light and can be moved easily.

https://www.amazon.com.au/KitchenAid-KSM160-Stand-Mixer-Almond/dp/B077NTX8RY

In the previous post, I also put up a picture of an award. Now I can share the news as it has been announced. Our short film ‘Implanted’ won the People’s Choice award at the Lights! Canberra! Action! film festival. The film is about nerdy, cat-loving Nigel who is accidentally implanted with a microchip and starts behaving strangely. It’s a rom com. And we need something uplifting these days. At the time it was post bushfires and bushfire smoke and we wanted to take people’s mind of that.

This is the team, my daughter, me and my partner Matthew. A huge thank you to the team, lead actors Michael Slater and Amelia Forsyth-Smith, the crew and to Executive Producer and teacher extraordinaire, Dan Sanguineti from Sanguineti Media, where we did an intensive film making course in February.