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My Kingdom for a Spoon

I must have missed something.  Spoons, which have been around far longer than forks, are disappearing from the restaurant scene.  It's not just the high-end places, mediocre restaurants are no longer offering a full set of silverware either.  It's just a fork and a knife.  And yet, they have things in bowls.  I'm sorry, but if you serve something in a bowl, isn't a spoon kind of a prerequisite?  Didn't the bowl run off with the spoon in some children's rhyme?  Are spoons more expensive than knives and forks?  Are they too hard to clean?  Honestly, I don't get it.  I don't even get the selection.  Why eliminate the ubiquitous spoon?  Why not the knife?  This isn't the middle ages where diners had to stab at some dish with a knife they carried around with them.  This is the 21st century.  We like our salads.  With the exception of buttering bread now and then I haven't had a single dish in the last few years which required a knife.  But eating dal, a lentil SOUP, as I did yesterday, or risotto, as I did today, or a nice tofu/noodle broth combo, as I did last week, well, I'm sorry, they require a spoon.  Unless you want me to pick up my bowl and slurp from it.  Honestly, I don't think anyone wants that.  So don't make me embarrass you, or me, and don't make me beg.  Just give me a friggin spoon.

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