Stir Crazy After All These Years
February 10, 2015
Part of a dilapidated gate at the abandon ruins of the ancient Colher de Pau Muito Nojentoa?
Nope. This is Jim’s beloved wooden spatula, which succumbed last night after I don’t know how many years, but something well north of two decades. It made many a revolution around the pots of our kitchen; it scrambled and mixed and moved stuff from one side to the other of a lot of pans. It stirred and stirred and stirred. But no more. It finally broke, a victim of its own disgusting grossness:
Jim loved this spatula. He actually prepared most of our stove-top meals using it. Despite the fact he had a lot of excellent, some even high-tech, alternatives.
My problem with Jim’s most favorite spatula, and I’m sure I am not being unreasonable here, was that food would lodge stubbornly in its deepest recesses, as you can probably see. I’d have to use a sharp knife or toothpick..or even floss.. to dredge the remains of chicken, oil, herbs, gravy-like stuff—whatever he’d stirred, sauteed, crisped, reduced–from deep within. It was beyond gross. But I still did it.. always rationalizing that the heat from whatever he was cooking would probably kill whatever was growing in the cracks and crevices. And then tried not to think about it. As far as I know, we never got food poisoning from tainted spatula gunk.
So, buh bye beloved spatch. We’ll stir love you after you’ve gone.
