Eco friendly Living

I am a huge fan of trying to reduce our personal carbon footprint and getting back to basics. I hark back to 'The Good Life' There are many reasons for this, most of which I wont get into in this post, I will leave that for future entries. But one of the reasons is that things just arent made like they used to be (how many times did our parents say that 20 years ago!) Life is terribly materialistic, there are many mod cons and intruments to make our lives easier. The thing about all these 'things' is that they, quite simply, arent made to last. Mobile phones, for example, are made to last a year before you need to buy a new one - one year! Thats terrible, and do you know what the worst thing is we are drawn into this hype and marketing, all too often we do just throw things out and replace them with a new, bigger and better one. Shame on us! (Disclaimer - before my current mobile phone, I had owned my mobile for nigh on 8yrs, so it had a pretty good innings, I would have kept it too if the battery had not crapped out on me. Guess what, you cant replace them *rolls eyes.* and Telecom had brought out a new (bigger and better ;-) network so I had to upgrade. I dont like my new phone, sure its pretty, it has a colour screen and can go on the internet - but for the basic times I use it all that is wasted on me - I mean who wants to peer at an entire internet page on a 2in screen, optometrist anyone!) (although I do secretly covet a new iphone or android so I can download the knitting apps onto it - now that I would use!)
Anyway, my post has digressed. The point to this post is that at the weekend I dug out of our shed Jasons nana's old Kenwood Mixer. It has been languishing there under the dust, grime and bird offerings for several years. We were given it when Nana Dark went into a rest home. But alas our tiny poky kitchen could not accomodate its solid, cast beautiful body. Now we have a gorgeous, huge kitchen. So the machine came out and got a good clean up.
I did a bit of research and discovered that it is probably about 55-60years old. It is solid, heavy and built to last. It has a huge stainless steel bowl with it. Perfect. Its a Kenwood Major A706 light industrial. (Nana Dark had 5 children and made lots of lovely baking) The only downfall is that it is quite rare so the mixing attatchments are not available. The shank is a different fitting to most Kenwoods and it didnt have the dough hook or balloon whisk with it. I will keep my eyes open for them though!

Today I got the machine out and made some ginger bread for a christmas ginger bread house. It mixed like a dream. More about the gingerbread tomorrow (its egg free, sam friendly and I am hoping to make egg free royal icing too)
Here are some photos of the beautiful beast.