Food processor yayayayay!!!!!!!!

I was slowly going crazy because I didn't have a food processor. This may seem ridiculous, but I swear that 99% of the recipes on the Food Network require one. I didn't notice this when my cooking obsession first manifested, but once I got past the infatuation stage and actually began to consider making something, my excitement over a recipe unfolding on tv would turn to nearly suicidal frustration, because 20 minutes into the show Giada would say, "And then you put everything into the food processor..."  I soon realized that every recipe conceived from the time of Creation requires a food processor, and that I couldn't possibly make anything worthwhile without it. 

So I bought a 12 cup Kitchenaid food processor, as recommended by America's Test Kitchen. A little pricey, but it has so many delightful attachments that it seems worthwhile. My favorite shreds cheese; after manually shredding enough cheese to fill a pickup truck in preparation for a Cinco de Mayo party (or at least, watching the friend I designated for the task shred the cheese), I see incredible value in this capability. 

The day after the food processor arrived, I had to take a mental health day in order to spend some time with it. The first thing I made was hummus (perfect), followed by falafel (ok, chickpeas in tandem, but we have a middle eastern theme going).  The second day I was forced to again work at home, since I didn't think the food processor was yet ready to part with me. I made pesto (ran out of olive oil partway through, and had no car to go to the grocery store, so it's a little thick, but that can't be blamed on the food processor). Then we used it to shred cheese for quesadillas. 

At one point, in the height of my ecstasy, I considered taking the leftover chicken from our Cinco de Mayo party and shredding it for chili in the food processor. Then I started to have bad acid flashbacks from my time with braces in high school, during which my mother would puree whatever she happened to be cooking and pour/scrape it into a glass for me. I later realized that first instincts are always the best, and that I should have processed it.  I instead manually cut the chicken into pieces, during which I sliced off a significant portion of the tip of my left thumb. I can only assume this was a thrilling revenge for my scorned processor.

In summary, buy a Kitchenaid food processor. Maybe karma will make my thumb tip grow back.