Unlike my tool drawer (see 'Tool' blog), I have LOTS of kitchen gadgets in my kitchen drawers. My kids make fun of us because we will stroll through all the kitchen stores at the outlet malls. I love Tuesday Morning because of their kitchen stuff. They always have the weirdest items. Things you'd never ever see (or pay $20 for) at a normal store, but at cheaper prices. Bed Bath & Beyond: I'm digging the 'Beyond'. They probably have every kitchen invention that comes down the pike (but not at cheap prices, whether you use one of the coupons they send you every week or not).
A few years ago my favorite spatula developed a crack in the handle and part of it finally broke off. I still try to use it, but you can't really 'baby' a spatula. It's your main weapon in your kitchen arsenal! You have to be able to dig and scrape and pry those good crispy crusts of the fried potatoes from off the bottom of the skillet...that's why you fry 'them taters'. Since my spatula became a wounded veteran of the kitchen wars, I've been on a mission to find one JUST like it. I've looked all over the world. I keep bringing them home, but none of them quite measure up. It's like Chef Ahab looking for his 'great wide spatula'. I'll probably never find another one like it. I suspect Farberware just quit making them.
Oven mitts are another staple in the Whittern kitchen. But they get dirty (or charred) so quickly that there never seems to be enough (clean ones) around. I always hate it when that big nasty thumb gets stuck into a freshly cooked meal (yuck). It's also a little scary when I brush up against the 'heating element' in the oven and get to endure the aroma of freshly burnt 'mitt'. Don't expect any pics of oven mitts forthcoming. None of our mitts are really 'post-worthy'. Wish I had one that said, "Kiss My Mitt!" (as a throwback to "Kiss My Grits"). When I have my oven mitt on, you will hear no MC Hammer music.
Started wearing mitts pretty faithfully after an 'incident' in college. I was getting ready for an out-of-town gig and thought I'd cook some green beans before I left. Now cooking green beans (back then) was pretty simple: open the can, dump 'em into a pan, turn the heat on and stir (I do much more seasoning with bacon and brown sugar now). But during the college days, it was pretty mindless stuff...and that was the problem. It was so mindless, that it slipped my mind that I had put the beans on the stove. A bunch of the band members and I lived in a big yellow two story house on Duck Street (a few years before Garth Brooks lived in it) and I was upstairs showering and getting ready to go. When I trotted downstairs, I could see the lonely pot of beans on the stove from across the house as I instantly remembered putting them on to cook. I sprinted across the room and nervously looked into the pot, only to see the dried up, mostly burned now-black beans stuck to the bottom of the pan! Luckily, I had left the spoon in the pan so I quickly grabbed it to try and stir the beans in an attempt to release them from their fiery grave. BIG MISTAKE. The fire hot spoon virtually stuck to my hand. College boys don't have oven mitts. They also don't have sense enough to NOT leave a spoon in a hot pan either. I did have a tray of ice cubes in the freezer, though and I managed to hold one all the way to the gig that night. WOW, that hurt!!!
I'm not saying that mitts are impervious to everything. I've held a pizza pan or corningware dish right out of the oven a little too long a time or two and started feeling the heat ("If you can't stand the heat, get out of the mitten"). And yes, I wasn't kidding about brushing up against the oven element and starting a small 'mitt fire'. Mitts are glorified gloves. So naturally the thicker the glove, the harder it is to affect the hand.
I used to use rubber gloves alot in the kitchen...at least to reach down into a nasty college-boy sink to do week-old dishes (no tellin' WHAT you might stick your hand into in those sinks). You could still feel the cold, but the wetness and the slimyness was somewhat kept at bay (sorry spellcheck, you just can't drop the 'y' in 'slimy'). Unfortunately, I too often would reach too far in, and that rubber glove would fill right up with nastiness (or I'd discover a previously unnoticed rip in the glove and realize that my thin wall of protection was pretty much nonexistent after all).
The other day our pastor was talking about the war between good and evil, between God and the devil, and how the only real way for the devil to 'get at' God was through God's people. I got to thinking, if God's spirit lives in me and directs my life, then it's like I'm the glove and He's the hand. Now sometimes I'm all 'fit like an oven mitt' and it'd be hard for old Slewfoot to cause any damage during those times. Other times, though, I'm like an old yellow rubber glove with a hole or two here or there. Not good for much; and an open sieve for all sorts of nasty, slimy gunk. Paul paints a word picture about the armor of God in Ephesians 6. But since I've never been stuck by a spear or been wounded in battle (other than taking a paint ball in the eye once), it's a bit of a reach for me to fully envision that. But I definitely can relate to the 'oven mitt' of God...and the three-edged 'spatula'; protected, yet armed for whatever task that lies ahead.
Hebrews 4:12 For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any... (a. two-edged sword, b. double-edged sword, c. surgeon's scalpel, d. triple-edged kitchen spatula).*
Whatever translation you prefer, the NKJ, the ASV, the Message, or even the RTV*, you get the metaphor. In life, in battle, in the operating room, or in the kitchen...you need to be protected, prepared and properly equipped.
Just don't ask me to put on the apron of God! Them's frying words!
*a. New King James, b. American Standard, c. the Message, d. Randym Thoughts Version
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