The Scots love to stir their porridge with a spurtle. I thought this was something I needed. My utensil drawer set me straight by reminding me about the leg warmers- “They might be fair trade, organic leg warmers, but if your legs aren’t cold, it’s still a frivolous purchase.”
This might be a hand-carved, walnut, porridge-stirring, omelet-flipping utensil, but if you’ve already got that covered, it’s still a frivolous purchase. Maybe not as frivolous as the $3,000 plus brass candlestick or the quarter of a million plus Porsche featured in the same paper. At $25, the spurtle was a bargain, relatively speaking. But relative can get you in trouble when you absolutely don’t need it.
Ok, it’s frivolous. I might want a spurtle, but I sure didn’t need one. Having a hard time letting go of this, I tried a different tack. What if I went with Victor Hugo’s “The beautiful is as useful as the useful… perhaps more so.”? This is a very handsome pot stirrer. And were it to live on the counter beside a heavy copper saucepan, maybe being pretty would matter. But living in a kitchen drawer along side other useful but not so beautiful things exposed the shortcomings of the Hugo tack.
I came to my senses… closeted beauty and frivolous. So unless you’re a participant in the Golden Spurtle World Porridge Making Championship in the Scottish Highlands, you too can stir the pot without a spurtle.