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cimoreneI bought one of those cordless handheld vacuums at home a few months ago - the main body contains a chargeable battery and it's all about the size of the old Dust Devils and that sort of handheld vacuums I remember from the 1990s, but it slots and snaps into attachments, a floor roller, a long neck, a little brush, to extend its use. I was given one at work and found that even though the actual VACUUMING power is less, so it's a lot less effective than a traditional corded vacuum, the net effect is that more gets cleaned because it is so much more convenient. It's gotten out and put away more easily, maneuvered around effortlessly, so much easier to manage than the rolly floor model with the long snake neck.
Anyway, the same day I got it I was using it to vacuum up some flakes of scraped paint, dropped it on the cement steps and cracked the front edge of the lip of the little dust compartment right where it snaps onto the motor part. So the function was unimpaired, but the little molded edge that snapped into place to hold it together broke off, so I had to replace the dust collector container. In the meantime I held it on with duct tape.
But I was pleasantly surprised when I went to the Bosch website. It was only a few clicks, all clear and easy to find, to a place where I could type in the serial number and a long list of every component popped up, complete with a little line drawing of the whole apparatus so you could see how they fit together, and it was just a few more seamless clicks to order the part. It took a couple of weeks, presumably because Bosch Finland had to get it from a warehouse in Germany first?, but fortunately the duct tape held out.
Soooooo unfortunately I was primed to optimism when our mixer, a UK-made Kenwood Chef, walked itself off the counter while kneading bread and landed on its nose, chipping a splinter of ABS plastic off the several plastic pieces of body that are why the Kenwoods are so much cheaper than the KitchenAid.* Also it fractured the splash guard into several pieces.
"That's fine," I told Wax. "I have an idea that I can get stainless steel versions of the mixer attachments it came with that can't go in the dishwasher, and then we would be able to wash them in the dishwasher. I can order them at the same time."
Nope.
First of all, Kenwood Finland's website doesn't have any obvious "accessories" or "parts" or anything like that on the main page. I ended up going through a menu to mixers, and there I found a submenu that ends with TWO DIFFERENT MENU ITEMS THAT ARE BOTH CALLED "ADDITIONAL PARTS". No spelling differences, no punctuation differences even, not even (a) and (b). What the fuck? On hover I discovered the urls end with "Acc" (so, accessories) and "Attachments". But why didn't the translation cover that? It's not like you can't say those things in Finnish?!
However, the splashguard isn't present in EITHER of these categories! I tried "support". I tried the little tiny texts at the bottom of the page. I searched the site for "splashguard". They apologize, but no results, have I checked my spelling? I tried the Swedish version of Kenwood's website. The Swedish website has a big "accessories" menu item front and center. I clicked, I filtered to the Kenwood Chef, I saw splashguard at the bottom of the list... marked sold out.
I went back to Kenwood Finland and clicked their Contact form, typed in name and email address, the model, and in the message field, "Is it possible to order a new splashguard for the Kenwood Chef Classic? Ours is broken. I couldn't find it on the site." Click send, and...
404 error.
If it were ten years ago I'd just tweet at Kenwood "Why won't your Finnish website take my money?" but, you know... I left Twitter and I haven't got a Bluesky because it is also funded by venture capital. So.
"It's fine," said Wax, "We'll just try again sometime." Granted, the KitchenAid I grew up with didn't have a splashguard. I know how to get around it: I'm making bread dough right now.
But I can't order the stainless mixer attachments - okay, I won't, I mean - without the splashguard.
*(Also it used to be white plastic but now it's all yellowed, and all the plastic parts don't come off without a screwdriver, but there are places where food and flour flung up by the mixer get stuck and crusted inside and you can't get it out properly without taking it apart. We have spent as much as a KitchenAid costs on things before, so I could've replaced this years ago, except we felt like we don't use the mixer often enough to be worth the expense. We go months in between. Unfortunately I was raised knowing how to bake in a house with a KitchenAid and so I'm a snob who is extremely irritated with this poor machine every time I use it.)
Anyway, the same day I got it I was using it to vacuum up some flakes of scraped paint, dropped it on the cement steps and cracked the front edge of the lip of the little dust compartment right where it snaps onto the motor part. So the function was unimpaired, but the little molded edge that snapped into place to hold it together broke off, so I had to replace the dust collector container. In the meantime I held it on with duct tape.
But I was pleasantly surprised when I went to the Bosch website. It was only a few clicks, all clear and easy to find, to a place where I could type in the serial number and a long list of every component popped up, complete with a little line drawing of the whole apparatus so you could see how they fit together, and it was just a few more seamless clicks to order the part. It took a couple of weeks, presumably because Bosch Finland had to get it from a warehouse in Germany first?, but fortunately the duct tape held out.
Soooooo unfortunately I was primed to optimism when our mixer, a UK-made Kenwood Chef, walked itself off the counter while kneading bread and landed on its nose, chipping a splinter of ABS plastic off the several plastic pieces of body that are why the Kenwoods are so much cheaper than the KitchenAid.* Also it fractured the splash guard into several pieces.
"That's fine," I told Wax. "I have an idea that I can get stainless steel versions of the mixer attachments it came with that can't go in the dishwasher, and then we would be able to wash them in the dishwasher. I can order them at the same time."
Nope.
First of all, Kenwood Finland's website doesn't have any obvious "accessories" or "parts" or anything like that on the main page. I ended up going through a menu to mixers, and there I found a submenu that ends with TWO DIFFERENT MENU ITEMS THAT ARE BOTH CALLED "ADDITIONAL PARTS". No spelling differences, no punctuation differences even, not even (a) and (b). What the fuck? On hover I discovered the urls end with "Acc" (so, accessories) and "Attachments". But why didn't the translation cover that? It's not like you can't say those things in Finnish?!
However, the splashguard isn't present in EITHER of these categories! I tried "support". I tried the little tiny texts at the bottom of the page. I searched the site for "splashguard". They apologize, but no results, have I checked my spelling? I tried the Swedish version of Kenwood's website. The Swedish website has a big "accessories" menu item front and center. I clicked, I filtered to the Kenwood Chef, I saw splashguard at the bottom of the list... marked sold out.
I went back to Kenwood Finland and clicked their Contact form, typed in name and email address, the model, and in the message field, "Is it possible to order a new splashguard for the Kenwood Chef Classic? Ours is broken. I couldn't find it on the site." Click send, and...
404 error.
If it were ten years ago I'd just tweet at Kenwood "Why won't your Finnish website take my money?" but, you know... I left Twitter and I haven't got a Bluesky because it is also funded by venture capital. So.
"It's fine," said Wax, "We'll just try again sometime." Granted, the KitchenAid I grew up with didn't have a splashguard. I know how to get around it: I'm making bread dough right now.
But I can't order the stainless mixer attachments - okay, I won't, I mean - without the splashguard.
*(Also it used to be white plastic but now it's all yellowed, and all the plastic parts don't come off without a screwdriver, but there are places where food and flour flung up by the mixer get stuck and crusted inside and you can't get it out properly without taking it apart. We have spent as much as a KitchenAid costs on things before, so I could've replaced this years ago, except we felt like we don't use the mixer often enough to be worth the expense. We go months in between. Unfortunately I was raised knowing how to bake in a house with a KitchenAid and so I'm a snob who is extremely irritated with this poor machine every time I use it.)
(no subject)
Date: 13 Oct 2024 02:27 pm (UTC)My husband didn't know how good KitchenAid was until I got one as a wedding present and now he's also a snob (and he thinks you should get a KitchenAid, even a refurb, because you deserve good baking tools).
(no subject)
Date: 13 Oct 2024 02:38 pm (UTC)KA is now made with plastic gears and says you can’t knead bread above speed 2 for longer than like 2 minutes now anyway without voiding the motor burnout warranty so they’ve basically excused themself from the consideration for most serious bakers, which is wild. I was at dinner the other night with the VP of marketing for KA/Maytag and told her, yeah, if you bake bread a KA is no longer on the list.
Anyway. After all my research I ended up with a Swedish mixer, the Ankarsrum. It’s ridiculously gorgeous and has fixed all my KA peeves (counter clearance height, no head in the way when adding ingredients to the bowl, no walking or wobbling when mixing stiff doughs, no need to scrape the bowl, no weird dry spot at the base of the bowl, attachment removal so much less traumatic (grabbing the dirty attachment so it could be pushed upward and removed from the mixer was a sensory hell).
(no subject)
Date: 13 Oct 2024 02:51 pm (UTC)My mom's was bought on clearance in the 1970s and it's still going strong. I think she's had to have it fixed a couple of times, but I guess that's not hard with something that's sturdy and mechanical.
(no subject)
Date: 13 Oct 2024 03:17 pm (UTC)But I would say, you’re probably at just the right age to get a good mixer. If you buy a good one now, it will last you the rest of your lives, while the Kenwood is unlikely to last the distance (it’s already currently kind of broken lol), and then you’ll be buying something new and getting less use out of it over its lifetime!
My best use cases for money are things that remove annoyance (first), add pleasure (second), have a long lifetime and cost-per-use can come down almost infinitely low.
If you want my research, my second choice would have been the steel Bosch Universal Plus but despite the advantages of it being lighter, I know I hate suction caps on the base of appliances. The Seattle store was also able to show us the Ank running (the motor is so quiet!) and fed my husband a sourdough cookie also hahaha.