The Tale of Two Spoons

Once upon a time (about three weeks ago) the cook of the manor found that her 25 year old spoon was getting long in the tooth and decided she needed to purchase a couple of new wooden tools as replacements. She looked at Target but didn't find anything (and she is also participating in a  boycott of Target-another story for another night).

A cursory schlep thru at Kohl's and another peak at the dollar stores didn't please her, but she did find a style that was suitable at Meijers. The shaft of the spoon was thick and the bowl adequate for her stirring of batters and slurping from the pot of the savory soups she likes to create. The eager cook purchased two.

Isn't this a lovely spoon? The manor budgeter was so excited to find such a beauty and under 5 dollars each. This was a clearance sale from $9.99 . Cook hopes the spoons will last nearly as long as the retired utensil that has served so well...........

Alas! When the stirring and slurping began this past week, the spoon failed to serve the mistress of the kitchen and her expectations of a long life. As she scrapped the pasta from the pan, she noticed an odd item. What looked like an overcooked sweet potato french fry was laying on the counter top. She was very perplexed. How did this item get  into the pot of fusilli? Chalking it up to something one could see while organizing several dishes for the week including freezer dinners, she plodded on.   Then she found another in the Sweet Potato chili pot. How very odd.

Said cook withdrew the spoon from the pot of Sweet Potato Chili only to find the above! The spoon which was so beautiful out of the packaging, was now splitting apart at the seams! As you can see from the above photo, the spoon is layers of hardwood...perhaps glued together. Clicking to enlarge will show you that more layers are set to disengage themselves from the bowl of the spoon and honestly, cook believes she gets plenty of fiber already!

In what at first had been perfectly formed twins are now a mismatched and scary duo. The cook of the manor had washed the new spoons with soapy water and let them air dry in the mason jar. The only difference was spoon on the right was called to duty in the Sweet Potato Chili construction and spoon on the left was put in the reserves for another day.  Spoon on right will be dismissed from the kitchen brigade for failure on the job. Spoon on left.......well, cook  thinks she  will glue some flowers to it and let it decorate the premises of the kitchen but it has permanently been added to the Don't Ask Me To Stir Your Pot list.

The cook of the manor is now on a new journey to find a spoon worthy of her soups and stews and pasta constructions. Perhaps cook will also find the perfect cast iron Dutch oven and stainless steel canning pot in the process.

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