One cannot make only spoons and aliens. At some point, one must make at least a spork, or even a fork. Last month, about a dozen of my spoons sat in an art gallery for a day or so. The purpose was to gauge customer interest and receive some feedback. Apparently, there are buyers out there who’d pay a high price for custom hand-made wooden spoons, but might hesitate based on two factors: 1) Prospective buyers were informed that cocobolo is a possible irritant for some people, and that invoked some reluctance. 2) Prospective buyers would be more inclined to pay a higher price for a set, rather than a lone spoon.
This makes sense to me. The rest of the world isn’t as fixated on spoons as I am, and some folks want forks with their spoons. I’m not sure why I accumulated so many wooden spoons without making a fork. Both have their own challenges of design, but neither is drastically more difficult to craft. But I think a fork is slightly more onerous.
The above image is of the larger fork of the three and is probably more of a spork. It’s not that I’m an intractable spoon fiend, but it seems reasonable that if one is to have a fork, adding a bit of spoon functionality to it only improves it. It isn’t a dinner fork — it’s 15 inches and pretty big. The depth of the bowl is mild, but would easily handle a serving, of say, peas or such. A proper fork would struggle with that. So until the advantage of a proper fork becomes clear, I will be making forks that resemble sporks.
I haven’t betrayed the spoon, but I have realized that a fork, for some things, works better than a spoon or spatula. One example is stir-fry, notably for noodles. I recently had this epiphany and am now a proponent of a fork for this purpose. And the original impetus behind my first hand-made utensil was avoidance of plastic, which is difficult with non-stick cookware. Wooden forks do very well here.
Below are two mediocre twin forks. They are small, at approximately 13 inches length and under 2 inches width. They were my warmup for the one above, which isn’t overly flattered by the photographs, but is a really nice fork.
Despite their timid dimensions, they are very useful and will easily rival a spoon or spatula in some circumstances. And they’re cocobolo, which always makes them better, for me.