When my roommate moved to England last year for grad school, she left a lot of kitchen stuff at our apartment. What was she going to do, pack cake pans and a heavy cast-iron griddle in her suitcase? Thankfully for my cabinet shelves, she did not. But there’s one thing she refused to cross the Atlantic without: her beloved mini spatula.
When we lived together, she sang its praises constantly, mostly because its teeny tip could get the last bits of pesto or pastes out of little jars. She’d also use it to scrape bowls and pans to make clean-up easier and reduce waste. After she moved, I was left with a mini spatula-shaped hole in my kitchen drawer (and my heart). It wasn’t long before I sprung for a new one — at just $10, I had no reason not to.
I already knew that the mini spatula was a kitchen necessity, especially when it comes to getting a jam jar clean enough to put straight in the recycling. At just 1.25 inches wide and with a nearly foot-long handle, it can fit into almost any size container, even tall slim jars. And because it’s silicone, you can use it to stir hot things such as soups, then just toss it in the dishwasher.
But I never could have predicted that it would be such a quarantine savior. At a time when getting every last bit of peanut butter out of the jar is the difference between having just enough for a recipe and making a risky grocery store trip, it’s become a true hero.
Now that I’m hunkered down in my apartment, I, like many people, have been cooking more. I’ve been trying to mimic my favorite restaurants’ dishes, and I used the mini spatula to get all the tomato paste out of its tiny tin can to make Carbone’s spicy rigatoni. Just yesterday, I used it to get every last drop of carrot cake batter out of a bowl. Then I employed it to level out the batter evenly in the cake pan. Once the cake cooled, that same mini spatula helped me spread the glaze across my dessert.
But even when I don’t feel like cooking it comes in handy: Recently, I used it to scoop Nutella and Speculoos out of their jars to make my own version of Dunkaroos with Animal Crackers. (Don’t judge — it was delicious.)
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