RUBBER SPATULA EVANGELIST

It’s important to always have a rubber handy…a rubber spatula, ya sicko! I should be whimsically crafting notes about some hand-carved wooden spoons my Italian grandma passed down to me—bathed in stories of lamb ragu or slow-cooked tomato sauce. An ode to that heirloom you can hang proudly display in your ceramic vase alongside it’s professional stainless steel tongs or copper ladle friends would be poetic, indeed. But there are certain tasks—at least 78% more tasks than you can imagine—that necessitate the rubber spatula. 

My mom still has the most perfect rubber spatula that has ever existed in the history of mankind. She probably bought it sometime in the early 2000s, before Amazon Prime and when Pampered Chef parties were all the rage for stay at home moms. The Mix N' Scraper®, as it is so fondly called, was cream colored (though it originally may have been white), has a perfectly ergonomic and sturdy plastic handle, and the hefty rubber end tapers off like a relatively squared spoon. It’s much larger than the thin cracker-sized spatulas (also great) and the rubber is so sturdy that it’s actually a superbly effective stirring mechanism to boot. Oh, and it’s high temperature resistant, making it extra versatile. 

Many small-minded cooks have limited the rubber spat’s abilities to simply scraping the cake batter bowl or quickly scrambling eggs in a non-stick. But with this particular spat, you can mix anything you would normally mix with a spoon. Stirring chocolate chips into a thick batch of cookie dough? Way better with Mom’s Pampered Chef number. It’s sturdy enough to spread out all those chocolate nuggets just as well as your grandmother’s wooden spoon, but comes with a bonus feature: the no-man-left-behind abilities of flexible rubber. Thus, you get the ever so satisfying pleasure of wiping out every last remnant of sauce, bit, or food goody from the bottom of all bowls, plates, and slick food surfaces.

The Spaniards said it best, as the word for spatula is "lengua," meaning "tongue." So yes, it’s much like licking every last drop out of your ice cream bowl. Only the spatula makes that appropriate and entirely possible. This is a no-waste dream. They should be selling rubber spatulas at those waste-free grocery stores! One day revolutionary studies will be conducted measuring the amount of food saved from the dark perils of the kitchen sink drain with solely the rubber spatula. 

My mom gifted me my very own Mix N' Scraper® in my stocking during college, like a right of passage. When I moved out of my sorority-like house after graduation, it was no where to be found. One of the 15 girls that called the place home (and by calling home I mean left their dirty dishes in her room for two weeks straight) now has her very own kitchen treasure. I was initially furious, but I can only hope that she too is now a spatula evangelist—saving one bite of food at a time.