ode to a blender

By Todd Stadler · Sunday, October 21, 2001 2:48am

My roommate Beeman got a blender recently. He's very proud of it.

And indeed, who wouldn't be? It has fourteen settings.

Now, far be it from me as an American to question why one needs fourteen blender settings, but, well, I am curious. Did people complain about previous models not having enough?

"Dear Oster, you ruined my Thanksgiving dinner. I needed to break up some Durkee fried onions for my world-famous green bean casserole. However, your crappy blender only offered settings of "mix" and "puree", not a "break up" or even a "chop". Nonetheless, I tried the "mix" setting. Well thanks for nothing - the granularity was all wrong, and everyone hated the casserole. Even the dog threw it up all over grandma, who had a hard enough time keeping it down herself. I hate you and your stupid company. Sincerely, Martha Stewart"

Maybe I'm just not a good enough cook to understand the finer points of food partitioning. Maybe really good chefs have blenders with sliders on them, allowing for an infinite number of blending levels.

Of course, any truly awesome chef would do all his blending with a knife. Yes, even "liquefy". Somewhere in Japan, there is a former ninja making sno-cones with six cubic feet of ice and a Ginsu. That man is my hero.

But that's not my point. My point is the settings on this blender. Someone out there had to come up with fourteen different words or phrases to best describe each level this blender offers. No doubt those words and their order were tested before a consumer group to ensure that people really grasp what the settings mean. Any company that makes its products so user-friendly as to earn the iMac design committee seal of approval would at least go that far, right?

But I think they screwed up. To that end, I am offering up a contest, with some vague, unspecified object or concept as a prize. The rules are simple: put the fourteen words or phrases below in the proper Oster order (without consulting any blender or blender- related resources - if you cheat, you are truly pitiful) as defined by my roommate's blender. When you have the order down, e-mail me [The contest is, of course, long over, so if you're reading this now, don't e-mail me. Thanks. — Todd]. Results to be announced here. Are you ready?

The words are: grind, chop, puree, liquefy, mix, mince, cream, shred, beat, grate, whip, blend, ice crush, and "easy clean".

Don't ask me what "easy clean" means. If I knew, I'd be one step closer to understanding blenderhood.