My favorite eating utensil

Of late I have realized just how much I love eating things with a spoon. Especially while snacking, a spoon is certainly my favorite utensil. Often there will be a spoon in the drying rack and another on the countertop, even though I live alone, because I use my spoons more often than I wash dishes.

Things I have eaten with a spoon (in no particular order): ...continued

• Cereal. yogurt, oatmeal, other breakfast foods
• Applesauce, right from the jar
• All four servings of the instant pudding that you shake with milk and chill for 5 minutes
• Grapefruit
• Ice cream:
  • A whole gallon in two days
  • More times than I can count, a whole pint of Ben & Jerry's or Haagen Daas in one sitting
• Salsa, right from the jar
• Brown sugar (long story, but basically I was out of snacks and had no time to run to the grocery store for about a week)
• Peanut butter, often a whole jar in two days
• Soup (of course)
• I'm one of those people who likes to twirl spaghetti around the fork using a spoon, rather than cutting it
• Raw oats (another long story, similar to the brown sugar)
• and much more...

The spoon is under-appreciated in a number of respects. For one, when somone eats quickly, the term is often "shoveling food into one's mouth." The shovel is not simply an oversized spoon; rather, the spoon has an identity of its own. For another, the spoon can be used as a makeshift mirror with which to see around corners or in tight spots. Case in point: my grill's ignitor switch wasn't working, and I needed to see if it was sparking, so I reached my spoon down in there and took a look.

Further, of all the standard kitchen utensils, the spoon is second only to the spatula as being the least dangerous. Would you want your child playing with a meat cleaver, a cheese grater, or an apple corer? Probably not. But give that kid a spoon and watch the hours melt away.

Next time you see your friendly neighborhood spoon, give it the old "Good Game." Thank it for being the perfect vehicle with which to deliver food to your mouth, and so much more.