(imported from old journal)

So, last night I was whipping up some pizza dough, and I was getting ready to add more flour, so I propped the handmixer on the edge of the bowl (leaving it running — does anyone else have a sense of foreboding here?) while I got the flour. The bowl of pizza dough fell off the counter and I lunged to grab it, instead sticking my hand into the rapidly-rotating dough hooks! I was stuck for just a second before I flung the mixer to the floor, at which point it came unplugged and stopped rotating, but Holy Mother of Handmixers did my hand hurt!! At first all I could do was hold it tightly with my other hand and tremble and grit my teeth. It must have been quite a sight, because during all this the dough (still at the runny, nearly liquid stage) had been whipped all around the kitchen, all over the cupboards and the floor and on my clothes and in my hair and on the dogs–who were delightedly lapping up whatever they could get to (and let me just mention here that all that yeast consumption didn’t have a positive effect on their gastro-intestinal systems!). After a minute or two, I inspected my hand and concluded that nothing was broken, even though it hurt like a motherfucker. I wrapped it in a cold towel and after twenty minutes or so and a cold glass of water, set about making a new batch of dough. My hand still hurts, but not as much as I thought it might (I am typing this two-handed right now without too much pain), and I expect I’ll be fully recovered in a couple of days, but this was definitely an object lesson about the dangers of kitchen appliances (you wouldn’t think I’d have to be thirty years old before learning that one, would you?).

(Oh yeah, I used your pizza crust recipe, Les, and it got rave reviews!)