A spoon collector's story, ENJOY:
Last night I took out my favorite user and prepared to have a nice cold bowl of ice cream with a crunched up butterfinger on it. Now this spoon is a dandy, and has seen a lot of use of the years. It’s a vintage American made spoon of high quality. As I gazed lovingly at her curvaceous curves and edgy edges, I had an idea. I was considering thinning out the cheeks to see just how much efficient performance I could squeeze out of her. I realized that thinning the cheeks would certainly limit the diversity of the tool. Did I really want to make my favorite, all-around user into a special purpose piece? If I moved forward with it, I would have to limit use to softfoods only. Cereals, soups, porridges, and the like. I would only be able to use it on ice cream after it had softened considerably. No hard frozen ice cream. And what about ice cream riddled with hard knots of taffy or frozen nuts? We could be looking at rolls and dings, if not chips. What foods might impose serious risk to the thinner profile of a spoon filed to resemble the exotic racing spoons in all their fragile glory?
Despite my reservations, I decided to press forward. After all, I have many general purpose working spoons. I also have special use spoons. Robust, stout spoons for hard ice cream, frozen yogurt, etc. I have boy’s spoons. I have hewing spoons that will hew off the most perfect bite of chocolate cake you’ve ever seen. Tiny “belt spoons” for popping single kalamata olives. But I do not have a thin, sleek softfoods spoon. Game on.
I wrapped the handle in a heavy rag and chucked her up in the bench vise. I pulled out my old Simonds 10 inch single cut flat bastard file and set to work. I must have let me excitement get the best of me. When the single cut file seemed to slow, I almost robotically reached for the angle grinder. After a few minutes of grinding, the head suddenly snapped off the handle and flung against the wall. I had snapped the haft! After recovering from the initial shock, I began to collect the pieces of my broken spoon and my broken heart. I had to drill out the eye and use a drift to hammer (kitchen mallet) out the leftover pieces of the handle. I hung it on a new handle. Of course, I did NOT use a steel wedge, only a wooden wedge. Why would I use a steel wedge and risk splitting my brand new handle? It’s not necessary anyway for a pro spoon hanger like me. Besides, I don’t want to risk getting heavy metals into my soup, now do I? For the love of all that is good and righteous, damn the steel wedges!
When it came time to oil up the handle I decided to use clarified, purified organic safflower oil available though Chef Gordon Ramsey’s website for merely $50 USD per 1.5 fluid once bottle. Now those of you who have sold yours souls to BLO, remember this – BLO is not food safe. Why does it matter you ask…it’s on the handle, you don’t eat from the handle. Well, what if in the comfort and privacy of my own home, I decide to break the Spooner’s Code of Honor and Awesomeness and lick a dribble of food off the handle of my favorite spoon? Impolite? Yes. Improper? Yes. Heretical? Maybe. Now before you go giving me one liners from “A Spoon to Carve” or “The American Spoon Book” or some YouTube tweener, or NYC hipster – let me just tell you that I have been feeding my exquisite face with a spoon for nearly 30 years! I know a thing or two about the practical applications of a spoon! I’m not some keyboard jockey or armchair spooner critic. I’m a damn daily user, Friends. At any rate, I don’t want to be licking BLO, besides it’s really hard to get out from under my fingernails after hand applying it.
Needless to say, my baby is back in operating condition. With her new sexy profile and razor sharp edge, she shredded through my grits this morning in record time and fashion. The handle is a bit fat, though. I’ll have to thin her out a bit more in order to ward off hand fatigue. I will get more pics up later on, along with some hardcore testing results.
I was also thinking of doing one more thing that will really knock your socks off, and probably enrage and inflame many of you to the point of combustion……I was thinking…..of painting the handle!
I just had to have it and ran out of time to look into it, so I just bid anyway...does anyone have experience with this???
Ha ha ha ha ha........................................................
