Baker’s dozen wooden spoons on Food52. Photo by Rocky Lutton and Mark Weinberg for Food52
In one of my former lives as a magazine editor, I wrote a piece about a potter (ceramics artist?) who lived out on the East End of Long Island. One particular thing I remember about that day was that she had an enormous, extremely well stocked kitchen and one of the most impressive collections of wooden spoons I have ever seen. She probably had more than 50, which made me feel great in that way that a junior hoarder gets to feel like a minimalist while looking at the piles amassed by the infamous Collyer Brothers.
They were all different sizes and shapes and were clearly all loved and well used. Ever since that afternoon I have secretly wanted to amass a similar collection for myself, though in the interest of staying married, I have limited myself to maybe 5 or 6 spoons in our much smaller kitchen.
And then I saw the above set of thirteen (13!) amazing, individual, hand crafted wooden spoons in all sorts of subtly-different-but-totalluy-practical-in-some-specific-way shapes on Food52 and all was lost.
Lets just say that I am working very hard to figure out a word that means the opposite of need, because that is exactly my relationship to this set of cooking implements. I really really really do not need any more wooden spoons. And yet my desire for them grows every time I look at the photo. It is evil cruelty. Maybe somebody will give them to me for my birthday or Christmas or something, and I will be forced to begrudgingly accept them and find room for them on my counter.
Because I wouldn’t want to be rude and return a gift, now would I?
opposite of need…. Crave? I feel you, sista’
Hmmmm… Thanks Joanna, good suggestion. But I wonder if there might be a German word for I-totally-crave-this-object-but-I-already-have-several-of-them-and-therefore-am-having-difficulty-justifying-my-feelings? THAT would be perfect!