The kitchen appliance passed away quietly in a suburban pantry after a brief but dazzling weekend of culinary output.
Panasonic SD-YD250, 14, a countertop bread maker whose brief but dazzling 2011 culinary output defined a single weekend, died Tuesday in an Evanston pantry following a sudden power-cord failure.
Purchased during a fleeting ambition to eliminate store-bought carbohydrates, the appliance spent the last decade resting quietly behind a salad spinner. Though its active baking career spanned just 48 hours, the machine's legacy includes a surprisingly dense whole-wheat loaf and a slightly sunken cinnamon-raisin experiment that was eaten entirely out of familial obligation.
It gave us two structurally sound, vaguely brick-like loaves right out of the gate, and then it enjoyed a long, well-deserved retirement taking up thirty percent of the lower cabinet.
The machine is survived by a specialized kneading paddle that no one can currently locate and a plastic measuring cup repurposed for scooping dog food. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that mourners check their own cupboards for appliances last plugged in during the Obama administration.