Gimme A Hand with Lunch

Or more precisely, a hand and a... uh... mitten?

I know why this cutlery intrigues me. When I was younger, I had a Japanese lunchbox that had individual compartments for hot food, cold drinks and an all-purpose compartment - those clever Japanese have a way with making things fit neatly together. But since everything was so tightly fitted together, there wasn't room for a full place setting of cutlery. Instead - and this is what I loved most about it - there was a spork that came with it. A combination spoon and fork, the spork was essentially a bowled piece of flatware like a spoon, but with tines at the end. I loved the innovation of the spork, and looked forward to using it every time I had lunch.

This flatware set reminds me of that spork , but split up. Neither completely bowled nor flatly tined, the fork and spoon look like mutant versions of each other at varying stages of development. But the Japanese up the kawaii factor by making them your pair of helping hands at the dinner table. And really, there's nothing much else to it. But if you can add a bit of fun quirkiness to your meals, why not? Life's too short to be serious all the time. Check it out, and see if you can purchase it, IF you can read Japanese, via the Mitsubai website.