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!

72406_pho.jpg

It’s enormously huge and I use it for eating vats of pho.

And this one!

72406_smallbowl.jpg

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!

72406_cup.jpg

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:

spoonlarger.jpg

…instead of the preferred spoon, the superior spoon, the non-cow-spoon:

spoonsmaller.jpg

(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 brulĂ©e 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.

72406_tile.jpg

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angela
17 years ago

the cow spoon is reserved solely for scooping ice cream and for serving mounds of mashed potatoes at thanksgiving.

Jessica
17 years ago

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.

angela
17 years ago

p.s. – the tile colors look awesome.

Anna
Anna
17 years ago

Aaaa! Dish Porn!

Whinger
17 years ago

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.

warcrygirl
17 years ago

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.

JennPerryman
JennPerryman
17 years ago

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.

katie d
17 years ago

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.

Keri
17 years ago

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! ;)

tracy
tracy
17 years ago

I don’t think the cows even use cow spoons!

tracy
tracy
17 years ago

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!

ginger
ginger
17 years ago

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?

Heather B.
17 years ago

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.

karamarie
17 years ago

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.

Bella-KE
Bella-KE
17 years ago

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..

Mimi
Mimi
17 years ago

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?

Candace
Candace
17 years ago

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.

amber
17 years ago

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.

Anne L.
Anne L.
17 years ago

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.

Jen
Jen
17 years ago

I prefer the COW SPOON over the smaller spoon.

Genie
17 years ago

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.

Shawna
17 years ago

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.

Christine
Christine
17 years ago

You asked……

Mel
Mel
17 years ago

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?

Michelle
17 years ago

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.

Pete
Pete
17 years ago

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

victoria
victoria
17 years ago

OK, I have to agree, JB is insane.

Donna
Donna
17 years ago

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.

Donna
Donna
17 years ago

Those are the spacers that you have to use when you are spacing vertically. On the tile I mean. Heh.

Anna
17 years ago

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!

lisa
lisa
17 years ago

Cow spoons are for soup! Only for soup, dammit!

Unfourtunately, my husband agrees with you, and uses them for everything. Heathens.

jonniker
17 years ago

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?

honeybecke
honeybecke
17 years ago

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!!!

Katie
17 years ago

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?

Sonia (DDM)
17 years ago

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!

Jessie
17 years ago

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.

Jem
Jem
17 years ago

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.

megan
megan
17 years ago

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!

Lisa Ann
17 years ago

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.

Nancy
Nancy
17 years ago

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…..

Laurie
17 years ago

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??

Sabine
17 years ago

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.

HollowSquirrel
17 years ago

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.).

Adrien
17 years ago

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.

Anais
17 years ago

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.

justmouse
justmouse
17 years ago

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

Megan
17 years ago

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.

Shannon
17 years ago

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?

honeybecke
honeybecke
17 years ago

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.

Niki P
Niki P
17 years ago

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??? :)~