![]() Life is hard single-use silverware makes it infinitesimally easier. The point is: The blissful functions of these forks and spoons and knives far outweigh both their price and the kitchen space they take up. A simple, affordable, and, yes, superfluous pleasure smaller than a bread box. Specialized silverware is never necessary. Amortized over all our Anchovy Club years to come, we concurred: The fork was a worthwhile investment.ĭid we need this wide-mouthed little-fish fork? Of course not. Samantha found hers, etched and elegant, on Etsy for $30. ![]() As did we, unpolished people, using it to bestow potato chip after potato chip with one marinated anchovy after another.Ī collectible utensil, a single sardine fork can fetch upward of $900 on auction sites. The squat, multi-tined symbol of Victorian refinement was used by oh-so-sophisticated people to horizontally support the slick and slender tinned fish. My friend Samantha gussied up our most recent socially distanced backyard meal with a rare form of vintage fish flatware: a sardine fork. Every dish must feature the bottom feeder, or its friends. For six years running, I’ve been a jar-carrying member of an Anchovy Supper Club. To use with the cheaper jars, the lesser jars, that come without a fork of their own. Occasionally, I’ll keep the Ortiz fork for a stint. That cute, dollhouse-sized prong that comes affixed to the jar of olive oil-packed filets, to keep your fingers from smelling like anchovies all night. Single-use silverware itself, on the other hand, does. ![]() Of course, the PB-Jife is not some priceless family heirloom, some marrow scoop passed down through generations. And efficiently, sans the oily spillage that inevitably comes from a simple butter knife, or what I used to use: a backward-facing soup spoon. Especially those mornings when I pull my toast hot out of the toaster (oven, always) only to realize I’ve got a brand-new jar that needs stirring, fast. ![]() As someone who eats peanut butter toast for breakfast five or six days a week, it has changed mine. “It’ll change your life,” the lyrics promise. Its official name is the PB-Jife, and it has its own rather catchy jingle, or (ahem) jam, written and recorded by PB-Jife founder Landon Christensen. With a sturdy, thick, red handle and perfectly curved 7-inch stainless steel blade, the $12.99 utensil gets to the bottom of the jar, “saves your knuckles” from getting gooped (per the website), and spreads flawlessly. It began to dawn on me: By dismissing such humble, hyper-specific inventions, I was actually making my kitchen more complicated.īut while the pasta scooper made me a single-use convert, there’s no Grandma Ida Kitchen Item I’ve loved more than the peanut butter knife. Serving spaghetti had always been more of an unruly spoon-fork-lift affair for me - and now here I was! Filling bowls like a boss, not a strand astray. Until I met my mother-in-law, the queen of obscure, single-use culinary gifts of the inexpensive, unrefined kind: plastic-square pan scrapers, strawberry de-stemmers, apple slicers - she’s sent them all from across the country, with love. My kitchen had what it, and I, needed, and nothing more. Just more stuff in a drawer - in a world! - already cluttered. Like fine china, specialized silverware seemed so antiquated. Using a grapefruit spoon to eat a grapefruit seemed akin to using an umbrella in a drizzle. Instead, I painstakingly cut through the membranes with a versatile paring knife, until each wedge was wrested free. Once I had my own home, and my own silverware, I forgot all about the citrus spoon, even though I came to love grapefruit. Every so often I’d accidentally grab one and get a good cheek-graze with my Honey Nut Cheerios. Whereas our serrated, stainless steel duo lived unceremoniously, jumbled among the teaspoons. My parents had grapefruit spoons because their parents had grapefruit spoons, but those came with more pomp: They were sets of eight, sterling silver, each lying peacefully in its own slot in a felted wooden box. Since only my parents ate grapefruit, only they used them. They sort of scared me: With their sharp teeth, they were the sharks of the silverware drawer. We had two grapefruit spoons when I was growing up.
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