wooden spoons – Ali Does It Herself

This “recipe” comes from The Art of Doing Stuff and is so easy and nifty that I almost feel like I’m doing something wrong. I love my wooden kitchen tools and cutting boards but I’m really bad at taking care of them. This is an easy solution. You need two things: beeswax, which you can get at any health or craft store; and mineral oil, which you can pick up from pretty much any decent kitchen store that sells wooden cutting boards. And IKEA.

Start by chopping up 2 1/2 ounces beeswax.

Plop that in a double-boiler and melt it good.

Such a happy colour.

Then pour in 1 1/2 cups mineral oil and stir that around for a while, about five minutes. Just for your edification, I had a bottle with only 250mL (1 cup) of mineral oil, so I adjusted the beeswax amount to 1 2/3 ounces. When you first add it in, the temperature differential will cause it to curdle, but it will melt again.

Alternatively, you could melt the beeswax in the mineral oil in the microwave, similarly to how I did it with the lotion.

Then you can pour it into cutesy containers and let it solidify.

It goes solid from the bottom up.

Finished and fragrant!

To use, scoop some out with your fingers (it’s quite soft) and rub it into your cutting boards and wooden utensils.

Leave for a few hours or overnight and then buff with a dry cloth.

Some of my spoons before buttering.

And the same spoons after. TADA! Makes a cheap and easy gift for the kitchen-minded hostess.

Yesterday may have been a Tuesday for you.

For us, it was Manna day.

I dragged the Pie out of bed at the crack of nine-thirty and towed him the block and a half from our apartment to the ReMax Centre, home to the St. John’s Curling Club.

We had come to take advantage of the Paderno factory sale, a rare opportunity to purchase some quality Canadian cookware. Yes, there is a Paderno Kitchen store in the city, but without a car, it’s practically in the middle of nowhere, so we don’t go often. Plus, we hit this shindig last year and found some RIDICU-sales, even though we came at the end of the event. This time we got there nice and early.

For those of you in St. John’s, the event runs from May 11th to May 16th, and is open from 9 to 9 during the week, 9 to 6 on Saturday, and 9 to 5 on Sunday.

Here are some of the things we saw that we’re thinking about going back for:

I am firmly of the opinion that you can never have too many mixing bowls. Especially nice ones. These two sets were especially alluring due to their cheapness.

We might come back later and get this nice medium-sized cast-iron skillet. We are trying to use cast-iron more often these days, and now we have a wee one and a huge one and it would be nice to have a medium one.

These are fish tongs. I’m not going to buy them. But I thought they looked ridiculous.

My parents have one of these oil sprayers, and it works really well. It means you never have to buy aerosol cooking spray again. I have to say that I am rather tempted.

These tiny wooden spoons were so cute! There’s no way the Pie will let me have even one of them.

We probably won’t come back for this, but it was interesting. An egg-toss pan, with a little bulge on one end to help you flip your egg. The Pie might want it.

A selection of cheap serving spoons. We really don’t have any serving spoons at all, so this is a definite maybe.

I thought these mugs are cute. I am, however, banned from buying mugs. Stupid husband and his RULES.

The Pie really, really wants this pizza cutter. Like REALLY.

Here’s what we ended up with:

This little cast-iron pan is our triumph. We picked it up from the salesmen’s sample table (basically, the scratch & dent) for ten dollars. It’s a little dirty but we don’t think those scratches are permanent. The ones that aren’t scratched are selling for twenty dollars, which is 50% off their original price. So it’s a real steal.

Also from the scratch & dent table came these two wee darling cafe latte-style bowls. The littlest was a dollar and the larger one was two. You can pretty much justify anything for two dollars.

Our most expensive purchase was this pan liner for $10.99. It makes a good alternative to parchment paper and as I’m planning to make a lot more bread these days I think it will come in handy.

I had to have this silicone spoon, merely because it was turquoise. And it was only $2.99. The Pie mocked my choice: “do we really need another spoon?”

Of course, that is coming from the man who insisted we get these miniature tongs (red to match our larger tongs) for $1.99. So I can’t really trust his judgments.