OK, so, during cookie season, the enamel coating on the flat beater for my 25-year-old stand mixer started to flake off. In other words the beater I use all the time. In late December I started my quest to replace it.
First, I tried to order a replacement beater from Chef’s Catalog – but I got mixed up between the tilt-head and lift-bowl models. The tilt-head has a flared bowl that screws into the mixer; the lift-bowl is narrower, and you hook it over two studs and crank it into place. I guess I can be forgiven my confusion because the mixer at School Woods is a tilt-head – but my main one, that I need the new beater for, is a cobalt blue, 5-qt. bowl, lift-bowl mixer.
Chef’s gives you free shipping on returns – there’s a bar code on the invoice – you cut that off, pack everything up, and take it all to Fed-Ex where the bar code tells them everything they need to know. I was charmed the first time, thought that was a really slick way to send the wrong beater back, and exchange it for what I thought was the right one.
It took awhile – I did the return Jan. 2, and just got the replacement on Saturday – the 28th. And even more disappointing, it was for a 6-qt. lift-bowl model.
I knew I’d have to return the second beater from Chef’s, so I saved all the packing material, located the magic barcode, left it all on the kitchen counter, and went to KitchenAid’s website to try to find the replacement there. Finally following John’s advice – afterall, he was in the womb when I bought the mixer – with a wedding present gift certifcate – so he has been intimately connected with it his whole life.
I got the model number and searched KitchenAid’s website – and here’s what I got:
Next I tried to browse stand mixers and attachments, thinking if I could get the right mixer, I could match the beater that way – you get 56 or 59 or so models, and it’s hard to tell from the mixer displays because the flat beater is standard – so they don’t say anything specific about what comes with :
But you can narrow to 9 pretty fast by selecting flat beaters:
And there was this one that sure looked right. But when you click for specs – no bowl size infor (I even poured water into my mixer bowl at this point to make sure I really had the 5-qt.), and no model numbers that matched mine. Notice the “Features and Specs” and “Buy Now” buttons.
Here’s what you get when you click features & specs – no bowl size, no mixer model numbers, just how great the beater is:
It was late Sunday night, so I gave up, and sent a support email to KitchenAid, asking which beater to buy (Mark teased me saying they’d respond by telling me to get a while new mixer) and packed up the Chef’s Catalog beater to return on Monday morning. Which turned into an odyssey of its own, UPS store couldn’t take FedEx, and the FedEx agent in the bookstore turned computer store on State St. couldn’t take it either – and the box is still on the chair in my office as I write – that magic barcode’s getting less charming all the while)
Thought about it some more, and last night I revisited the KitchenAid site, and clicked that “Buy Now” button on the beater that looks right – and finally got this full display, with my model number listed, but evidently, not searchable – I added the highlighting in orange.
Happily, cheaper than the Chef’s beaters which were like $29.95 – this one’s only $14.99, $18 or so including shipping.
As Rach said this morning, when I related the story of my quest, “bad metadata”.
