Why pay more for a new product you know will break, when you can buy an old one made to last? Our sixteen year old Hamilton Beach food processor (a wedding gift), finally started smoking under the stress of grinding nuts! So I tossed it out the back door into the winter snow to sizzle and pop, excitedly jumping up and down at the thought of a NEW, luxury food processor with all the bells and whistles. I ran to the computer and gleefully started tearing through reviews of all those shiny, new, deluxe food processors! Which will it be? Somehow I ended up with a 30 year-old food processor dinosaur from E-Bay. And it works like a charm.

All the reviews I kept seeing about these new food processors just didn’t please me. I have the worst luck when it comes to buying new stuff. My brand new VHS to DVD converter, busted one day outside of warranty. My Keurig Platinum coffee maker, busted one day inside the warranty. My Zojirushi bread maker doesn’t like to mix the dough, and four hours later, I’ve got a “splat” in the machine. My Coach purse, well, I never even bothered getting it. My husband says, “Just buy the cheapest, please, honey. You know everything is made to break nowadays.”

I kept seeing these reviews on Amazon and Chowhound referring to Grandma’s DLC-7 made in Japan still running like a charm. I need good luck in the appliance category so I zipped over and opened a new tab for my first visit ever to e-Bay, and I shopped. Finally found a Cuisinart DLC-7 about 30 years old, and I clicked and bought. Her pieces are solid, solid, solid. I could drop her on the floor and she’d not chip a piece anywhere. Her motor purrs like a child’s kitty cat. No dancing forward to the edge of the counter under duress. No unchopped carrots in the bottom of the bowl.

Half the price. Twice the quality.

The consumer has spoken. If it’s as old as I am, it’s got to be good.