I love wooden spoons

This picture is much smaller than I'd like it to be, but when you google for images, you can't always get exactly what you want.

I've always loved wooden spoons.

Why?

Who knows?

Why does anybody like anything?

I have several wooden spoons, in assorted shapes and sizes.

I used to buy them in packs of three at the supermarket, but one day I was at the Brickworks Market here in Adelaide, just browsing, as you do, when I spotted a stall that sold baskets and wooden things and went inside.

Well!!

I could have browsed that one particular stall until the market closed!

Baskets in all shapes and sizes.

Wooden spoons........oh the spoons! Large, small, every size in between. Even some of those gigantic ones that people used to hang on walls.

I happily bought a few and made plans to go back when I could. With a bigger shopping bag.

(Sadly that hasn't happened yet, and maybe that stall isn't there anymore.)

Now, I have seven wooden spoons, although one has a square head so is probably more of a spatula, used for stirfrying. All of them now have different coloured bowls on them, because I use them for different things.

The largest one of all is in the laundry. I use that one for stirring things that are soaking in a bucket of boiling water and Napisan.

In the kitchen there's a small one that I use to stir my porridge as it cooks in the mornings. I've written porridge along the handle, so any visitors won't mistakenly use it for anything strong flavoured, like curry.

I have a round bowled spoon for curry, it's also used for things like my soy-ginger tuna stirfry, and anything else that uses those "hot" spices, curry, mustard, turmeric, you know the ones.

Then there's the long narrow wooden spoon that's used for scraping things out of tall jars where a wider or shorter spoon wouldn't reach, like spaghetti sauce, or those jars with Kantong sauces for chicken.

I have one with an oval shaped bowl and a slightly longer handle, used for stirring big pots of soup in the winter and another shorter one that I use for tomato based gravies and casseroles.

One spoon in particular is rarely used these days. It's my "sweet" spoon. Named so because it's the one I use for mixing cakes and puddings. The bowl on it is oval and shallower than the others and the handle is a bit shorter. It's perfect in my hand, weight and feel, for the "beat for three minutes" stage of mixing things. The size and shape just seem to make a great textured mix.

Lastly, there's a small spoon with a deepish round bowl that holds a tablespoon measure. It looks to be hand carved with an open twisted handle and it's two coloured, light and dark wood.

I meant to take a photo of it, (I thought I already had), but somehow forgot. I'll get around to it.

These days I never even look at the supermarket packs of three spoons anymore. They're just so....blah.

I search the specialty kitchen shops for something that catches my eye, something that looks different, something that I won't find too many of when visiting someone else's kitchen. Something unique and individual. There's not too many out there, after all a wooden spoon is a wooden spoon is a wooden spoon.

So I'm going to have to start going back to the markets and look there. The Brickworks Market, to see if that stall is still there after all these years. The summer markets that are held annually at the beaches, special occasion markets in other areas of Adelaide. Like at the almond blossom festival, or the farmers markets. Even "giant garage sales" type markets held annually by some councils. Car boot sales.

Oh, this is going to be fun! I may even find some wooden bowls to go with all these spoons.

Not to mention chopping blocks......