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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