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July 25, 2006
Bowls? Really? Bowls?
You guys should have told me how strongly you felt about bowls. God, here I’ve been going on and on about babies and ill-fitting jeans and lube and dog fur and getting all kinds of weird search engine referrals for things I swear I did not write (today’s freaky google hit as of 3 hours ago: “I wanna fuck my pregnant sister in law”; on a whim I just searched for that myself and would you believe the first hits are not porn related at all, but rather posts by, respectively, Julie, Julia, Amalah, and Jen? My personal blogosphere is taking over the entire internet, which is both awesome and faintly disturbing) when all along I should have been talking about BOWLS.
Like this one!
It’s enormously huge and I use it for eating vats of pho.
And this one!
It’s eentsy-weentsy and I use it for feeding Riley, or as a dipping bowl for soy sauce and wasabi, or for pretending I’m being dainty while devouring multiple servings of something super fattening.
Don’t forget my fanciest, most attractive-yet-spectacularly-utilitarian container of all!
Oh yeah. I totally eat out of plastic beer cups sometimes. None of this fussbudget Goldilocks too-shallow too-opaque too-candy-dish-70s servingware namby-pambiness for me, dammit, I’ll take a feedbag if you’ve got one.
I used to think JB was weird, not only for his distaste for our green glass bowls (you know…the UGLY ONES?) but also for his behavior regarding the larger of our two spoon sizes, which he refers to as “cow spoons” because they are tooooo big.
“I don’t want a cow spoon,” he’ll say, staring in dismay at the utensil, which is a perfectly normal sized spoon, a “place spoon” I believe, versus the smaller teaspoon sized spoon. It actually affects his eating experience in a negative way. A SPOON that is not misshapen, not a SPORK, not ugly or covered in spikes or dripping with antifreeze, but this exact spoon:
…instead of the preferred spoon, the superior spoon, the non-cow-spoon:
(See the difference? Oh, you don’t? Because it’s, like, MICROSCOPIC?)
Anyway, now I’m guessing that there are many of you who would wholeheartedly agree that the size difference would fuck up your entire meal and turn the creme brulée to ashes – yea, ashes! – in your mouth.
I’d call you freaks, but I guess we all have our own special issues: for instance, I can’t be separated from a tube of Burt’s Bees for more than twenty minutes without clawing at my mouth and screaming. Live and let live, I say. But if you come for dinner, do let me know if the COW SPOON bothers you.
:::
In other news, the last bugaboo of the remodel work is coming together this week. Behold, tile! Which we decided not to do ourselves, because while we may be picky about lip balm and glass bowls, we are not, as it turns out, completely batshit insane.
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73 Responses to “The spoon of moo, and other assortments”
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the cow spoon is reserved solely for scooping ice cream and for serving mounds of mashed potatoes at thanksgiving.
As for my own wierd eating habit (I know you are just dying to know) is that I cannot bring myself to drink milk out of plastic cups.
p.s. – the tile colors look awesome.
Aaaa! Dish Porn!
Cannot, under any circumstances, eat with the tablespoon. Teaspoons are the best and always will be.
Also, completely with Jessica regarding milk out of plastic cups. I also cannot drink it out of mugs. Only glass.
Yes. Am freak.
Hubby uses a soup spoon to eat cereal and a cereal spoon to eat soup. He claims the soup spoon fits in his mouth better. YOU DO NOT PUT THE WHOLE SPOON INSIDE YOUR MOUTH TO EAT SOUP! I call him a rube, he calls me high falutin’. We’re a match made in heaven.
So not only will my husband not eat with the cow spoon, which happens to be my personal favorite (more food, less work!) he also won’t eat a frosty or chili from Wendy’s because the plastic spoons they offer are too deep.
JB has some serious dinnerware issues. Obviously, these should have been investigated prior to marriage and procreation. I have learned from your experience and will be sure to question closely all future significant other prospects. Of COURSE you can eat from the cow spoon. That is not a cow spoon. Cow spoons are obviously huge, serving spoons. That what you got there is a mere tablespoon. It is obviously intended for soup, pasta, and the occasional ice cream/pudding pig out. But it also makes a good cereal spoon, in a pinch. Especially if one is eating cereal from a deep green bowl. ;)
BTW, the tile looks awesome.
I see the difference between the spoons (one is a bit wider) but yeah, they are microscopic. I think my cow spoon and table spoon have a HUGE difference. The cow spoon is probably twice the size of the table spoon so naturally, I go for the table spoon. Besides, if JB doesn’t like the cow spoon you “mistakenly” set the table with, tell him to get his own darn spoon himself! ;)
I don’t think the cows even use cow spoons!
I love the tile too….I’m jealous of your house re-do but could Never live thru having my stuff in the garage.
Love your blog!
Wait. The reason I didn’t respond to yesterday’s post about bowls is that size matters and there was no object in the picture for perspective. Now you want me to comment on spoon size without perspective? No! I think not! If that big ole spoon is a tablespoon, and the littler one is a teaspoon, I’m with JB. Soup spoons and tablespoons are for soup. Anything where you’re cramming a whole loaded spoon into your mouth you manage with a teaspoon. (And it makes the ice cream last longer, too.)
And no, it’s not the size of my mouth – I can fit my fist in my mouth, but why would I want to?
I can only use a spoon that has some sort of plastic or enamel on it. I can’t just use a plain metal spoon with nothing on the handle. No. The handle must have some sort of ornament on it.
Dude.
You can not EAT with the larger spoon. It’s just not right. It feels horrible in the mouth. I have a fear of the larger spoon clanking against my teeth, and that would AWFUL.
The bowl comments reminded me of the ceramics courses I took in art school. I remember how we all were very careful and thoughtful about bowl/cup/plate design, because…it matters. How something fits in your hand, or how it feels against the lips, the feeling the design presents, it is all important. Hence all the opinions.
I never understand how my fiance can use those huge freaking spoons. Thank you, JB, for giving me the correct name for them. Cow spoons.
Um. The minority here.. but we always always eat with the tablespoons. Those are the eatin’ spoons. How else can one eat half of a box of cereal @ one sitting? The teaspoons, as any proper Englishman like my husband will tell you, are to stir your TEA. Plus, the tea stains them no matter how many times I run them thru the dishwasher. Bleh!
The milk? Yeah, also for the tea. Nothing sounds nastier than drinking some milk straight up. Well, I could think of a few things..
big bowls, small spoon – that’s what I say. I totally see JB’s issue with the spoons…. sorry. But I will say – I love the simplicity of the design of those spoons – they are fab! And the plastic cups – oh yeah baby – anything I don’t have to wash, I love! (yes, we are poor dejected dishwasherless folks over here).
Now I will be on the edge of my seat wondering which domestication will be discussed tomorrow…. trash bins? wire hangers? how big should your dinner plate be?
no no no…wee spoons are the only way to eat anything. smaller than a teaspoon even…I think they are dessert spoons…eating yogurt is especially nice using a wee spoon.
oh, and big bowls = good.
My husband will only eat ice cream with a FORK, and he spreads butter on toast with a spoon. I’ve never seen him eat creme brulee, but if I had to guess, I assume he would probably use a steak knife.
Mmmm, cow spoon! I love the big spoon for just about everything. Except creme brulee. And I think that I prefer the wee-er one for that only to extend the eating enjoyment.
I prefer the COW SPOON over the smaller spoon.
My sweetie agrees about the huge spoon being unacceptable. But his is rooted in the fact that the Army only had GIANT SPOONS and they would hit his teeth while he was eating (which, I must admit, sounds awful). I actually had to buy a second of the teaspoons to make sure we had enough small spoons in the house for him.
But I’m currently eating cereal at this very moment with one of the giant serving spoons (shovels, he calls them). Because it’s that many more Frosted Flakes I can shove in my maw at once.
I’m with JB. When we went to my inlaws for dinner I would alway request a small spoon to eat my ice cream. Like Ginger, I too can fit my fist in my mouth, but I love to savour my eensy weensy nibbles of dessert. I do use the big round spoons for soup though, as I need the greater surface area on top of the spoonful to allow more rapid cooling of the hot soup.
You asked……
The teaspoons are the way to go for me. My husband doesn’t care and will ea with either a big or little spoon. Ian just eats with his baby rubber spoon; teething, don’t ya know?
My boyfriend will only use a specific cow spoon – the others are unacceptable (especially for ice cream.) He prefers the big forks at all times, too. I definitely belong to the camp of smaller utensils – the big ones weird me out. Just thinking about big spoons makes me gag a little. Yikes.
I thought cow spoon was when two cows laid together. The ‘larger’ of the two spoons is more egg shape vs oval shaped which would force you to put your mouth in a shape most guy don’t want to think about. ;-)
Nice tile work. what are they using for spacers? I usually use the little cross spacers
OK, I have to agree, JB is insane.
Ok, so I would use all three bowls/cup for cereal if I needed to, so it must have been the color. I really love the fish bowl actually.
And the spoons, no, I have to have the teaspoon, and the hubby uses the tablespoon. I too hate it on my teeth.
We are all so weird. I just didn’t realize how much. Also, love the tile.
Those are the spacers that you have to use when you are spacing vertically. On the tile I mean. Heh.
A teaspoon is a must for any desert – it makes it last longer of course!! Also I may be weird but for years I have had a favourite knife and fork ( while I can eat with other cutlery I PREFER to use my fave ones). I had to save them when we got a new cutlery set – they sit oddly among the new set but they feel so right to eat with . Weird I know but meh !!
Also like the retro look of the tiles v posh!
Cow spoons are for soup! Only for soup, dammit!
Unfourtunately, my husband agrees with you, and uses them for everything. Heathens.
I have no spoon preference. My husband, however, will freak out if there is a utensil in his presence that does not meet his exact weight/size ratio specifications. I have not figured out exactly what these specifications are, but I do know that I have failed him on multiple occasions by bringing out the wrong fork/spoon/knife. I have had to actually switch utensils for him mid-meal to protect him from this awful fate of the misweighted utensil that renders his food inedible.
And those tiles look fantasic. Are they leading up into a gigundo tub?
i only use the cow spoons to stir the half and half in my coffee. i can’t eat with them, they are so annoyingly big. for the person who said wendy’s spoons are too deep? TOTALLY! i love hearing other people are weird like me :) oh, and also love the dainty sugar spoons for ice cream, yogurts and pudding. the ones we have i stole from british airways and south african airlines, shhh don’t tell! i just haven’t found any like them anywheres else.
oh, and about the green bowl. my husband said the outside ridges would be disturbing to hold onto while eating.
ps> love the coi bowl!!!
I LOVE the pho bowl. Love. That would be good for eating cereal out of…any spoon with do, thanks. Except, I agree with the above poster about the Wendy’s spoons being too…deep and weird. Wasn’t that a sunday school song back in the day? Deep and Weird?
My husband has an assortment of glass jars that he drinks out of. It makes me CRAZY. Jelly jars. Like, let’s finish off the strawberry jam and wash out the jar so we can drink out of it. And dribble down our chins. Because we’re drinking out of JARS.
Do we already know what it is that is being tiled? Is it the fireplace hearth? The bathtub surround? Either way, it looks like it’s gonna be really nice!
That’s beautiful tile. And good choice not to do it yourself – my husband and I tend to want to kill each other during such projects, and I imagine most couples are the same.
My husband and I are opposite about the spoons though – he likes the bigger “cow spoons” whereas I hold that they’re too big for me, so I like the daintier teaspoons. I guess personal preference makes us all weird.
I always eat dessert with a teaspoon. I knew it was good news when I found out my boyfriend prefers the teaspoon as well. I guess since I was a kid I’ve been eating dessert with a teaspoon and I just never swapped over.
This is the reverse argument that happens in our house! The cow spoon should only be used for soup and for stirring sugar (or whatever) into large glasses of ice tea. That’s it!! But my boyfriend is firmly in the camp of using that thing for everything because for his manliness, the teaspoon is too small to hold anything. And he will only eat his cereal out of large bowls. Whereas the thought of trying to jam that large spoon into my mouth makes me feel like a heiffer.
Yet when it comes to stirring his iced tea? He mostly uses a knife. Which causes me to run screaming from the room. But I guess I have issues!
Thanks to Linda and the power of the internet I don’t feel so alone in my freakish silverware habits.
And I’m the same way about my Kiehl’s lip balm as you are about your Burts Bees.
I can only eat my cereal with a tablespoon, but not the one from our everyday cutlery. Those are too big. I have to use the slightly smaller tablespoon (the remnants of some earlier set), which is bigger than a teaspoon (too small for those big flakes) and slightly smaller than our regular tablespoons (which are too big for my mouth). I will rummage ever so long in the cutlery drawer for it, even if I have to do it blindly as my 5-year-old sits at the counter right by that drawer watching Saturday morning cartoons. I will join the line of freaks behind JB…..
This is funny, because on the topic of bowls, I def. need a deep bowl for both my cereal and ice cream consumption – thus all the bowls in the house are deep! Both hubby and I love deep bowls (hrmmm wonder what that says about us?) so we are constantly looking for deep bowls when we are ever in/near housewares stores…and on spoons, I recently read somewhere (in a magazine I think) that the metal of a spoon does distort the taste of ice cream – (again, I wonder what we eat a bunch of??) and that you should flip it over in your mouth so the first taste is of the ice cream and not the spoon! Interesting, huh? Anyway, while I like a deep bowl, I am with JB on this one, I like a smaller spoon. I just don’t get the big spoon – because they are too big to eat with, but not quite serving spoons – huh??
Cow spoon? Hehe…
I’m right with you on the burts bees. I keep tubes stashed everywhere, because if I lose it, I LOSE it.
Our husbands have similar spoon issues. The “cow spoons” JB refers to are, according to my husband, good for everything except ice cream and chocolate mousse. If I give him the smaller spoon for cereal, he looks at me like I’ve handed him a carving knife. Of course, this comes from the guy who hates cold cheese (but melted cheese? Delish.).
I have a favorite fork. Yes, a very favorite fork and I had to STEAL IT FROM A CAFE because that’s what you do when you find the Best Fork Ever. There are other forks in our cutlery drawer that I will use but there are a few I hate and it will be a bad night for my husband (who would eat with a pointed stick if that’s what his hand touched first) if he tried to hand me one of the d-list forks. As if.
I too cannot eat with a cow spoon. It truly does ruin my whole dining experience. I also can’t eat with the giant forks. I have to use the smaller ones.
Oh, and I have bowls similiar to your green ones and I use them everyday. I love them.
ok..i admit it. i, apparently, am a dishes/cutlery freak. i won’t eat with a cow spoon either…unless there is absolutely NOTHING else to eat with. in fact, my favorite spoon is actually a long, skinny handled BABY spoon! it holds less than a teaspoon. admittedly, you can’t eat soup with it…unless you want to starve to death before you’re finished. and i totally would NOT eat out of a plastic beer cup! but, it’s not cuz i’m a cup-snob. what concerns me is that it has edges at the bottom. and there is always that last little bit of food that i can’t get out of the damn edges!
but you people that can’t drink milk out of a plastic cup? you’re just weird. ;)
PS. the tiles do, indeed, look fantastic.
pps. the term COW spoon is about the most awesome thing i’ve heard! lol
I’m lining up with JB on this one. Cow spoons clank against my teeth and I hate that so I eat with teaspoons only. My fiance, on the other hand, thinks I’m crazy and prefers to eat with cow spoons. But, he has no problem using my teaspoons for other jobs, like spooning things out of jars, so the teaspoon section of the drawer is always empty and I have to either wash a teaspoon or eat with a cow spoon.
I liked the green bowels, actually. I would use them myself. My husband on the other hand…perhaps not.
I do not like the big spoons we have and much prefer the smaller ones. My husband likes the big ones. A match made in heaven?
i forgot- YAY for Burts Bee freaks!
during labor with E. i was all sorts out of my head about most everything, but the burts bees was there damnitt because i wasn’t going through labor without it. can you imagine 24 hours of labor without burts bees??? god, makes me shudder. i love love love that stuff. not the new honey one, not the red capped one (no one TOLD me it made my lips WHITE!?) but the good ol’ standard yellow one.
pure love.
I really don’t want to know how these ladies know their fists fit in their mouths…. This isn’t something I can ever recall doing. Ever. Ok- you know I am going to do it later tonight right??? :)~
I would totally eat cereal out of the Koi bowl. :)
The tile looks wonderful!!
Your problem is that you’ve offered him too many choices. I bet when he was a bachelor, he had maybe three of each item, possibly in asorted sizes, and simply used whichever was least nasty when he was hungry. Now you’ve confronted him with an array of dining options and he’s gone and formed opinions. I once bought square plates and my husband said, “What are we going to use those for?” Uh, eating? Now they are his favorite plates.
ah- if ever i came to your house to eat, i would gladly take WHATEVER spoons, bowls, or other eating implements you offered. they are all lovely and functional.
Long-time lurker here, forced to speak up
Spoons=whichever, although bigger, more food, yay!
Plastic cups=great for eating leftover lasagna on the beach
Cheese=must be room temperature, tastes WAY better
Glass vs plastic drinking glasses=GLASS
I can’t drink pop out of the can. I have to pour it into a glass with plenty of ice. And the pop has to be cold first, before i pour it into the glass with ice. yes. weird.
and p.s. riley is the CA-UTEST baby EVER
OK, couple things. The husband and I will eat off of whatever is available and/or clean (goes for both the spoons and the bowls), and our cow spoons are easily twice the size of our teaspoons. JB should never visit our household!
And, to Sonia: my dad is kind of a jar guy, too. So my Mom got these cool drinking jars. Yay, happy medium! And no dribbling. :o)
Wow who knew people had such different tastes in tableware? *no pun intended*
I eat with whatever bowl is clean, and whatever spoon is clean. If the spoon seems too big, it’s not required that I fill the spoon with the choice item I am eating, I just don’t fill the spoon up. I’ve never noticed the taste of a metal spoon, nor do I care what kind of cup I drink from. :shrug:
I have those EXACT spoons. And strangely enough, I prefer the cow spoon. I get better coverage with my cereal, and it allows my soup to cool nicely while I’m bringing it to my mouth. Also, they are they preferred spoon for ice cream because I can pretend I am dainty and am taking itty bitty amoounts of ice cream on my spoon. Regardless, you are correct–the size difference between the teaspoon and the soup spoon (which shall now be referred to as “cow spoon” in my household) for this particular set is the smallest I’ve ever seen.
Oh, I HATE the larger spoons. I make my boyfriend use them while I have the smaller ones. And have you tried the new Burt’s Bees Honey Lip Balm. It’s to die for.
Hey, all the talk of cow spoons made me think of a funny story.
Two years ago we had a huge Christmas dinner for extended family. We set up two long tables and used all the fancy china, linens and silver and even place cards. Well, we ran out of the fancy silver with one plate to go. I didn’t want to use our non matching stainless steel everyday kind so at my dad’s place setting I used the giant serving spoon, the giant serving fork (have you seen those… HUGE!) and one of those knives with the sharp pointy ends (don’t know the name). When we all sat down to dinner I watched my dad and you should have seen the look on his face… priceless! And he even attempted to use the giant fork and spoon to eat! I think he thought he had to. Ah, happy memories!
In the privacy of my home, I only use salad forks. Regular forks are too heavy. And the small Slurpy straw spoons are a hundred times more annoying than the Wendy’s spoon. And they’re too sharp.
Speaking of Wendy’s..I cannot eat there because of the square hamburgers. Just plain wrong.
Oh, you have NO idea about silverware angst. NONE. G got some massive set of super-heavy silver when he left for college that I SWEAR TO GOD is made of iron or something. And he will NOT allow to be replaced. I finally resorted to adding the pattern to my Replacements pattern listing notification, and recently CLEARED THEM OUT when they got a bunch of it in stock. I paid more for some extra spoons and forks than I think I paid for my Targetware dishes, etc. for a service for TWELVE. Men… they need serious help.
In my house, those cow spoons are great for scooping coffee, but that’s about it.
Must eat with large pronged fork. Small ones are evil…
My husband will also not eat from the cow spoons. Neither will my mother. I prefer the cow spoons, and I set the table, so they can just EAT WITH THEM AND SUFFER.
I love “cow spoons”! Too funny. We have disagreements over the proper serving vessel and utensil to use when eating a dessert that includes both cake/cobbler/pie and ice cream. My husband MUST have a fork and can’t possibly imagine why when you NEED a spoon to get all the melty goodness at the bottom of the BOWL (not plate as he would choose). He’s clearly insane.
I also must have a glass (not mug or plastic cup) for milk and said glass must NEVER contain ice. What are people thinking with that?!? My other peeve is: The Ubiquitous LEMON To quote Sundry, “W the proverbial F” is with the lemons in everything?!? Tea? Not my choice but, Ok, I get it. Water? You’re pushing it. If I wanted watered-down sour lemonade, I’d have ordered it. But now BEER? Get the fuck outta here with your damn lemons already! If people want lemons, let they ask for them. Don’t make me ask for everything I drink to be brought WITHOUT SOMETHING THAT DOESN’T BELONG THERE ANYWAY. I’m also clearly insane.
Moooooo! MOOOO!
I’m with JB on this one, though I know better than to try to cram the whole damn spoon in my mouth. Because if I try to eat something with it the correct way, I *will* spill.
And Apivita Propoline lip balm is my Burt’s Bees, after chancing upon a tube in Greece. That stuff is THE SHIT.
I am so with you on the Burt’s Bees. After losing mine a few times and positively going out of my mind, I finally bought seven or eight of them and stashed them in all the places where I find myself needing them. Just thinking about it right now makes me need to go put some on …
We only use the cow spoon at our house when we run out of the smaller spoons (which seems to happen all too often, because though we registered for eight placesettings when we got married, it doesn’t take too long to go through eight clean spoons at our house). Eating with the big spoon is somewhat of a miserable experience, though my husband seems to hate it more than I. I wish placesettings weren’t so rigid; I’d much rather have a bunch of little spoons than eight gigantic spoons we never even use.
i had a roommate who complained my spoons hurt his mouth. turned out the fucker was eating with the fucking sugar shell!
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