New Toys

Well, congratulate me. I broke my first coffee grinder this past weekend. Blew it up REAL good. I had just spent the day wandering through Kensington Market, and had picked up a big bunch of STUFF! Namely, three or four kinds of dried chilis, some tortillas, some tomatillos, and some sun-dried tomatoes. And of course, what would a trip to The Market be without a stop at El Gordo's for some killer empanadas? Their Mexican Chorizo variety are my favourites. Anyway, when I got home with my swag, I headed straight for the grinder to render the dried chilis into a more usable format. This part of the plan went off without a hitch. Seeing as the chilis are, well, dried and fairly thin, the grinder could handle them no problem. The problem was with the sun-dried tomatoes. Crazy, I hear you say? Perhaps, but while I was grinding the chilis, I was munching on the tomatoes and thinking to myself, "Gee, these sun-dried tomatoes bear a striking resemblance to the chilis. I bet if I ground them up, they'd be a lot easier to use."

So, after I finished with the chilis, I snipped the tomatoes up a little so they would fit in the grinder, and had a go.

The first batch came out OK. Emboldened by this, I kept going and tried to ignore the telltale warning signs the grinder was giving me. For one thing, it was starting to sound like an old outboard motor, and there was an odor that didn't smell like sun-dried tomatoes. Another man might have stopped at this point, and transferred the tomatoes to the handy-dandy blender I had sitting on top of the fridge. But no, there were only a few left, so I pressed on.

Then, not unexpectedly, disaster struck.

I heard a snap, and the sound that the grinder was making went from a labouring outboard motor to a high whine. Upon inspection, the rotating blade had bent almost in half, and had completely broken off from the motor assembly. Oops.

Soooo.... I transferred the remaining tomatoes to the handy-dandy blender from the top of the fridge.... Yes, yes, I know....

Now, to the point of this post (yes, there is one). I was then faced with the task of buying a new grinder. Excellent, new kitchen stuff. I looked around in several places, the first being Canadian Tire, because really, I don't need much of an excuse to go there and wander around. Oddly enough, even after looking at Zeller's and The Bay, I still couldn't find one that suited me.

So I came back to work on Monday dejected and still grinder-less, and what do I find but a store in my building called Personal Edge, which is just packed with some very cool gadgets and doodads, including three different models of grinders. I picked up a spiffy new Hamilton Beach model with variable speeds and a retractable cord. OutSTANDing.