October 27, 2016 - A place for everything and everything in its place.  Benjamin Franklin

My husband announced he was making mashed potatoes.  That sounded comforting and I didn’t budge from my curled up state. He is a very good cook and very able.  He had peeled the potatoes, cut them in cubes and they were already boiling in water on the stove.  He opened the cabinet and pulled out the electric hand mixer which was exactly where it was supposed to be because I do have part of this household set up correctly with “a place for everything and everything in its place”.

          I still have this lingering cold and my husband is making ‘comfort food’, or what you might call ‘old fashioned home cooking’ to drive my cold away. Having a cold he knows I am not going to be very ambitious about making dinner as I am curled up on the couch in my pajamas with a cup of hot tea.

‘Comfort food’ you turn to when you are under the weather with a cold or sore throat as in home-made chicken soup or mashed potatoes.

For kicks I slip off the couch to the computer for a quick peak on the internet for a list of ‘comfort food’ and I noticed several items are on my list:

Apple pie,

Chicken soup,

Mashed potatoes,

Pasta,

Pot roast, and

Surprisingly, Clam chowder was listed.

          Clam chowder; How about that?  My Mom used to make me clam chowder when I was a kid and had a cold.  Mom often said, “Your grandmother says that the clams in the clam chowder chase the cold germs right out of you.” I remember always feeling better after the chowder when I was a kid.  I guess it worked through the process of “grandmother’s love” passed on to me in my cup of hot chowder.

         

          “This is the same one I had at the bachelor pad, isn’t it?”  He asked as he unwound the cord on the yellow Sunbeam – Burst of power – 5 speed hand mixer.  He retrieved the beaters from a small drawer, assembled it, and plugged it in.

          “Yes,” I answered thinking what a quaint term bachelor pad was.  But, he was housekeeping in his bachelor pad a couple of years before we married.  I return to my cozy seat to listen to him reminisce.

          He mentions the friend that had given him the mixer and then he mentions the blender he got from another friend, and then the ironing board, and the two white ginger jar lamps  . . . he is merrily into his memory lane as he works in the kitchen.

I thought, ‘we have all those items still – after 40 years – frugal, aren’t we?’  They have made it through all our cross-country corporate moves and the three moves to different houses in this county. 

          I am thinking of all the food he made for me when he was a bachelor, garlic mashed potatoes, Chantilly crème for desserts, home-made sauce with meatballs and sausage . . . frozen brandy alexanders . . . YES, he knows how to get to my heart – through my stomach.

          I smile thinking we are lucky or fortunate, especially with an electric mixer lasting 40+ years.  That prompted me to slip to the computer again and check on line for a Sun Beam mixer out of curiosity.   Up pops eBay with our exact vintage 1970s mixer for sale ranging from $35.99 plus shipping down to $14.99. 

          “What are you looking for?  This one still works; you’re not going to buy a new one, are you?” He asks.

          “No, I was just wondering what they cost now, but, we aren’t the only ones who have gotten 40 years plus out of the mixer,” I report showing him the screen where mixers just like ours are pictured.

My husband is surprised that people were selling their “vintage” mixers.

          I thought, ‘They don’t make appliances like that now-a-days,’ and returned to my cozy couch seat. We can now call it “vintage”.  There used to be a name for that I learned in economics 101 – built in obsolesces or something about the economy of hard goods versus soft goods.  The phrase escapes me now, but we had just purchased a vacuum cleaner because the last one hadn’t lasted but a few years.

          He states, “They don’t make appliances like this anymore.  They make them now with built in obsolescence . . . ,” his voice trailed away.

          I smile thinking, ‘Yes, we’ve been together a long time when he starts saying what I am thinking.’

Later, after dinner,

          I notice the mixer has its cord all wound up nice and neat and it has been left on the countertop and not put away.

          “I don’t know where it goes,” he claims.

          “Right where you got it . . .” I say opening the cabinet and putting it in its place.

          I wonder, he easily found it, but couldn’t figure out where it went back to?  Obviously there has got to be some sort of flaw in this theory:  a place for everything and everything in its place.  Do we need an ‘item marker’ to be left where something has been removed in order that it goes back?   NAH.