Yesterday I went to the new Penzeys store in Cincinnati. For the last ten years I purchased spices via the internet from Penzeys so I was familiar with their products. Although the store is an hour detour from my regular commute, I was out of a couple of spices. Although you can buy spices in the grocery store, I like the quality, selection, and the bulk quantities available from Penzeys. I am not sure whether this is a good or bad thing, I bought more spices than I planned on.

This morning I decided to take a small detour from my commute and take a look at the progress for the Jungle Jims store at Eastgate. This is another store with a wide selection of exotic items that would be hazardous to my pocketbook. The store opening has been pushed back a couple of months.

Last Christmas my mother-in-law said that she wanted a hand mixer. I wasn’t sure so I bought two mixers. The first mixer was the highly rated Cuisinart HM-70 Power Advantage 7-Speed Hand Mixer. She bought a cheap hand mixer recently when her old KitchenAid stopped working. It did not work out to well. The cheap mixer was tossing food out of the bowel on slow speed unless she was really careful. Although this mixer has a lot of nice features, I was not surprised that the Cuisinart SmoothStart feature was the feature she liked the most. The SmoothStart feature keeps the food in the bowel.

The second mixer I bought was the Cuisinart CSB-77 Smart Stick Hand Blender with Whisk and Chopper Attachments. I thought that this might be a better “mixer” for her considering her diminished arm strength. I think I remember seeing a cooking show extol the virtues of this blender so I kept if for myself. She didn’t want anything to do with it so I ended up taking it home. It serves me as a small, portable food processor that is convenient to clean up. I used it for pureeing tomatoes in the can.