Growing up, coming home from school always meant the smell of something baking and the soft whir of my mom's Kitchen Aid stand mixer. Cookies, brownies, you name it – she was always making treats with so much love. Being an only child, my mother always dreamed of having a large family. She always admired how close siblings were and wanted that bond for her kids. So it wasn't a total shock when, with my oldest sister being 16, she announced that she was pregnant with her fifth child (that would be me).  Mom loved us all the same but always managed to find a way to make each one of us feel like her favorite. Baking was her way of showing how much she cared. She loved baking for us, our friends, and was always donating to the many Wheatley bake sales.

That mixer was definitely part of how she showed her love. Many friends and relatives received a Kitchen Aid mixer from my mother for their bridal showers - the ultimate show of affection and best wishes my mother could give. The stainless steel version she gave me before my wedding still holds a place in my kitchen today, and it's now used by my daughter—a budding baker who, just like her grandmother, has inherited a love for sweet things.

After Mom passed away, my dad gave me her original mixer. I already had my own and honestly didn't have a ton of space for another big, heavy thing, but there was no way I could get rid of it. Luckily, I am blessed to know The Heirloomist Shana Novak. Shana and I were in the same sorority at Syracuse University and I had been following her journey as she used her witty humor and incredible talent for photography to create a company that tells people’s stories through images of their most prized treasured possessions. For me, that was my mother’s mixer and I was so honored to have Shana photograph it for me. 

It now hangs proudly in my kitchen in Old Westbury, not far from my childhood home where the mixer lived its best life by giving my mother the ultimate tool to show her love for the ones she loved most.