Five Dollar Shake...

For as long as I can remember, I have been in love with diner shakes. Before I had the glory of drinking a diner shake, I was actually in love with the idea of a diner shake. At a formative age, I watched Pulp Fiction and wanted to visit the fictional diner in the film, Jack Rabbit Slim's. I wanted to sit in a hollowed out car-booth and order a five dollar shake, like Uma Thurman...

When Dan and I went to New York at Christmas, we went to The Brooklyn Diner and the first thing I ordered was... a diner shake! I loved that I was handed the canister to top up my shake - it's a generous act.

So, when Dan suggested buying a milkshake maker this weekend, I was pretty excited! Having researched milkshake makers for a while, we found that the general advice is to find an original commercial mixer as they are so sturdy that they make the smoothest and frothiest shakes. 

We then found a vintage milkshake maker listed on ebay at a reasonable price and found it was being sold locally. To cut a long story short, we bought it and found out that it had belonged to the seller's parents who owned a coffee house in Manchester. It was part of the equipment left in the cafe when they had bought the business in 1960, so it was second hand then. I love that our milkshake maker has a history and a lovely one at that - it served the lovely people of Manchester for many years, brightening up their day in a frothy way. 

The milkshake maker is a Gaskell and Chambers Dalex mixer. It is sturdy, beautifully designed and makes the best Goddamn milkshake I've ever tasted! It now sits proudly on our dresser, as it did on the counter-top in the cafe all those years ago...