How Do I Love Thee?... You're a Ten

Isn't it interesting how humans have used the number 10? One of the standard questions on a survey is to rate something 'on a scale of one to ten' with ten being the best (highest, etc.). Don't know if it still happens, but women used to be rated that way casually by guys as in, "She's a ten, man!" which meant that she was hot, foxy and so on. Lots of things depend on ten like the decimal system and even the computer. Basic computer programming is based on 1 and 0. And it probably all started with our ten fingers and ten toes...an easy way to count that is always with us.

In the kitchen our hands with those ten fingers are the workhorses. Stirring, chopping, grating, peeling, mixing, straining, beating...lots of things are done better by hand. And there are also the learned experiences that are invaluable. When we learn to test the doneness of a cake or muffin by giving the middle a gentle push with our finger, feeling just how springy the response should be, that's so satisfying. We can learn to do the same thing with fish or chicken to know when they change from almost cooked to just right, before they, within seconds, change to overdone.

Fingers can be used, clean ones of course, to stir together the dry ingredients for a cake if you can't or won't sift. They can be held together to create the perfect tool to fold flour into beaten egg whites for angel food cake...so much more responsive and gentle than a spatula. Use them to scoop up just chopped vegetables or fruits (see photo) to transfer to pan or platter. Endlessly useful, easy to clean and always at hand (sorry about that...puns run in the family), think of your fingers as the perfect ten for the kitchen.

How Do I Love Thee
hands
fingers
cooking gadgets