THE FONDER HEART

            It was, I suppose, the kind of conversation that goes on in millions of American homes on a Sunday morning.

            “Honey,” I said, “have you seen my absinthe spoon?”

            The loved one, of course, said she hadn’t.

            I’ve bought exactly one bottle of absinthe in my life, and it came with a free spoon, which was why I had it.  Or had had it once.  The spoon itself was attractive enough, but in my admittedly very limited experience of “the Green Fairy” its mind-clouding powers had been much exaggerated.  One bottle seemed to be enough.  I’d never used the spoon again, which was why it had no doubt been pushed to the back of a drawer somewhere and lost.

            As regular readers of Psycho-Gourmet will know, we take a special interest in spoons and their variations - the spork, the spife, the knoon and what have you.  And I’d happened to come across these rather wonderful skull–shaped spoons designed by someone called Pinky Diablo. 

            My guess is that probably isn’t his real name.  He was probably born Bluey Diablo.  And of course you have to wonder exactly what you’d use these skull spoons for.  They’d be just fine for stirring, not so good for shoveling, and they’d be a complete disaster for, say, eating soup.  You’d get lobster bisque all down your front.

             But maybe they’d be good for absinthe.  The absinthe ritual is a pretty straightforward one.  The absinthe goes in the glass, the spoon rests across the top of the glass.  A sugar cube rests on the spoon and chilled water is poured onto the sugar cube and drips down into the absinthe through the holes in the spoon.

            Maybe the skull spoon could be used to accomplish that, although it didn’t necessary look like it would sit very easily on top of a glass, and real absinthe spoons have very regularly sized and distributed holes which I think may be considered essential to the task.  I had my doubts.

            Anyway, I found my absinthe spoon eventually.  That’s it above.  So I really have no reason whatsoever to buy myself a skull spoon.  It would only get lost.  On the other hand, I find myself thinking seriously about buying another bottle of absinthe.