Appliance Owners Anonymous

I think I might have a problem.  I might be addicted to kitchen gadgets and appliances.  Actually, the real problem is that there isn’t room in the kitchen where I am currently living for all of my fun tools. 

I have always liked this stuff.  It all started with the old-fashioned French fry cutter that I used as a kid.  It was an aluminum contraption with a metal grid that you forced the potato through with a lever resulting in uniform potato sticks.  We also had an antique pocket sandwich maker that we used in the wood stove.  With two slices of bread, a little sauce and some cheese you could make a nifty little pizza pocket long before Hot Pockets ever hit the market.

I currently have two waffle makers that I only use a few times a year, one standard and one Belgian style.  I strongly prefer waffles to pancakes which is why these actually get used at all.  I also have an ice cream maker, a Crock Pot, a panini grill and a stick blender.  I use a Crock Pot but not the one that I own.  The person I live with has a couple of them.  Most of my gadgets are in storage around here somewhere or in a cupboard above the refrigerator that is inconvenient to get into.  There is a fryer but I guess that I am eating too healthy to use it.  I got a nice food scale for Christmas one year but I don’t think I ever used it before it got stored away and there was once a food dehydrator that only got used twice. 

At the moment, I am missing my Kitchenaid stand mixer, also stored away due to lack of counter space.  I once thought I would like to own all of the attachments that go along with it but I have had to scale back my appliance dreams.  I used to bake a lot more than I do now anyway.  As a matter of fact, there are a couple of totes filled with specialty bake ware and cake pans in the basement along with that mixer.  Someday perhaps I will have a bigger kitchen again but for now I have had to admit that I am powerless over my kitchen.  Do you suppose there is a ten-step program for this?