Spatulas, Spurtles, Spoons and Spreaders

Over 60 years ago, my maternal grandfather made cooking spatulas from maple and walnut, and I am lucky to still have a few of those in my kitchen. I took my inspiration from him when I acquired a supply of toasted oak wine sticks. When winemakers are aging wine in stainless steel vats instead of oak barrels, they sometimes still want to add some oak to the process. One thing they can do is hang oak wood slats in the tank. They are made from the same oak wood as barrels, and toasted the same as well.


These utensils started out as bundles of 2 dozen individual oak sticks a quarter inch thick, 2 inches wide and about 20 inches long. They are from a well known winery in the Paso Robles CA wine appellation.


I have been making these for over 15 years. In that time, I have expanded from his original spatula pattern into spurtles, spoons, and spreaders, and a try at a couple of forks. When shaping these in the shop, the combined aromas of oak and wine from the sawing, scraping, and sanding is quite pleasant.


A spurtle is especially designed to stir pots of thick stews and porridge. The paddle like shape helps to scrape the sides and bottom of the pot to prevent sticking and burning. The photo is from a few years ago when I made a few dozen sets for a church craft fair. That was before I started making spurtles.


I started making cheese spreaders in 2023, for holiday cheese balls and cheese logs. They are just a small spurtle with a sharpened edge

Since I moved back to Illinois, I have lost my source of wine oak. I brought a few sticks with me. However, I have a ready source of ash killed by emerald ash borers, and mulberry I had dropped to protect my house and barn. I milled ash 5 years ago and made a kitchen island cutting board top (a project for another thread...). I have a couple of leftover ash sticks from that, so I'm making utensils from ash now.

After finish sanding, they are hand rubbed with a food safe cutting board finish. The red color of these is from the red wine they were used in. The darkest ones had especially heavy toast on them. None of the color is from commercial wood stains.

 

Very neat! I’ll bet that smell is amazing!

 

I work for Oak Wise in Virginia. We make all kinds of adjuncts for the wine and spirits industry. We make those staves and emersion bags of charred chips. We even sell a liquid Oak called "Natan". I've noticed that the wood is usually pretty brittle after it has been used.