A friend of mine got her husband to understand the appeal of owning a KitchenAid stand mixer by telling him “it’s like a tractor for your kitchen!” I have to imagine someone must have also used this analogy in the 1920s and 1930s when housewives justified the extravagant purchase of this new invention. And once you’ve paid for the mixer, the attachments, which make it so tractor-like, add to the cost as well. Most of them, not surprisingly, are made by KitchenAid; there aren’t many third party attachments out there. Three companies have taken on the “scraping down the bowl” problem and sell mixer blades with soft ‘wings’ that scrape the sides of the bowl as they turn. The SideSwipe was recommended by Cooks Illustrated. There’s also the Beater Blade and the POURfect Scrape-A-Bowl. A less practical but enchanting attachment is the confectionary coating pan that lets home and small-scale candy makers evenly coat nuts, chocolates, and fruit just like the pros. The accessory I ran across that I actually want isn’t an attachment. It’s the MixerMaid which holds the beater, dough hook, and paddle that come with the mixer. Ours are always getting banged around in a drawer, collecting gunk on the counter, or stuck in the mixer bowl. I need to check this great idea out.