There was an attempt to…carve a spoon.

Quite a handful of the previous pastimes I had tried had one thing in common; they were essentially grown-up versions of hobbies that were for kids, such as building Lego models and making things out of clay. It was time to explore an idea more suitable to my age, and maybe something a bit more…”manly”.  You know the kind of thing; working with my hands, using natural materials, a craft passed down through the generations that served as more than a hobby, and would have been a valued, practical skill. The sort of pastime that would have Ron Swanson giving a silent nod of approval if he saw someone engaging in it. I was not quite ready for the pinnacle of manly pursuits according to 80’s music videos (carving ice sculptures with a chainsaw, stripped to the waist), so I settled on something on a smaller scale, with a slightly less chance of removing a limb or catching a cold.

I gravitated toward the idea of carving something out of wood; it ticked the boxes of working with materials from nature, using sharp objects, and an activity you would expect to see someone doing in one of those “living museum” attractions that are magnets for parents trying to educate their clearly bored kids by stealth under the guise of “a fun day out”.  

There were quite a few kits available, and I settled on a wooden spoon carving kit, which seemed to require a good level of effort, with the bonus of getting an actual usable object after completion. There was also a kit for making chopsticks. Chopsticks! I like my projects to be on the “beginner” side of any required skill level, but taking two thin sticks and making them slightly thinner? That’s a low bar, even for me. There were a few kits which popped up on my search which referred to “whittling”, but this was definitely not as manly-sounding as “carving” and brought to mind images of moving to the Deep South, donning a pair of dungarees, losing most of my teeth and learning to chew tobacco before embarking on such a project.

The kit contained everything I needed to fashion my utensil; sandpaper, some sort of wax polish and the wood block that would eventually become my spoon.  The block had been prepared so that instead of starting completely from scratch, I had what would have probably passed for a spoon in some low-resolution, 8-bit computer game; It had an essence of a spoon about it, desperate to be free, but hidden beneath a thick wooden overcoat. 

Also included was the tool that I would be using to shape my spoon; the wood carving knife. As soon as I unfolded the blade from its handle, it was pretty clear that this thing was one sharp bastard, more than capable of cleanly lopping off a finger instead of a wood shaving in any moments of absentmindedness. The requisite element of danger and manliness was complete; I could feel my chest hair thickening simply by embarking on the first tentative incision.

The knife glided through the wood as if it were butter, and a gloriously thick curl of wood tumbled onto the floor.  The whole motion felt a lot easier than I was expecting, but was still very satisfying and somewhat soothing on some primal level. Over the course of a couple of weeks, whenever I had a few spare minutes I would pick up the spoon and sit and carve for a while. Watching the spoon gradually take shape as the pile of shavings built up on the floor, it felt like I should have been on a porch somewhere, sipping whisky and humming the Blues, rather than on a comfy dining room chair with a wastebasket perched between my legs (It turns out that letting wood shavings pile up on the floor is “making a mess” and “bad for the carpet”, not “cool” or “rustic”).

As progress continued, it became clear that a lot more care needed to be taken once you got the big non-spoon chunks out of the way. The challenge became knowing how far to continue, as one false slip meant that an accidental notch taken out of one side would then need evening up, and so on, eventually resulting in a handle resembling a toothpick. The shavings became smaller, and the concentration grew. After a few hairy moments shaping the bowl of the spoon, it reached a point where the carving should cease.  After a few quick finishing rubs with the sandpaper and a coating of wax, my wooden spoon was complete. And it looked…half decent, if I do say so myself.

In fact, I was so proud of my efforts that it reduced the spoon’s utility from a potentially useful kitchen utensil to an untouchable ornament. Everytime an opportunity arose that needed a wooden spoon, I just couldn’t bring myself to use it for fear of ruining my pristine creation. It would be hastily returned to the drawer and another older, world-weary spoon would be recruited to do the job. The spoon remains a virgin to cookery to this day, and is likely to stay that way until I one day absent-mindedly reach for it to stir some soup. When that happens, maybe it will be time to fire up the Blues CD, grab a tumbler of whisky and set off to the porch to carve it’s replacement. After all, one needs a break from carving ice sculptures with a chainsaw every once in a while.