Happy delayed birthday to me!

We had a belated birthday dinner with good friends in Kaneohe last night. Great food and company, and I walked away with several very nice gifts.

But the most thoughtful was a pair of colorful 10″ Melamine cooking spoons, shown here along with one of the current generation in my culinary arsenal. The spoon in the middle is one of my old favorites, one of several that are used daily and slowly wearing out.

Look closely, and you’ll see the chip in the leading edge of the middle spoon.

I’ve used these spoons, and their predecessors, for decades. Originally made by Rosti, more recently they’ve been made in Thailand by a company called Huzler.

Availability seems to wax and wane.

Their earliest mention here that I can find was in a post on July 16, 2001. At that time, I had been unable to find replacements, and put out a call for help.

Have you seen these spoons? I haven’t. And that’s a big problem.

These have been my favorite cooking spoons for years. Hard plastic, so they can be used with my favorite cast iron frying pan as well as the nonstick variety. And, most important, the spoons have a flat front edge so that they can scrape and stir with ease.

I thought the spoons would be easy to replace. Wrong. I’ve been looking for months. No luck.

So maybe someone out there in cyberspace can point me towards replacements. Any and all references will be greatly appreciated.

Five years later, a reader responded with links to two current sources of similar spoons. And she added a bit of history. Apparently these were, at least for a while, kind of a cult thing.

A little history, variations have been made by many different manufacturers but I think it all started in Denmark. Rosti, Copco, Mepal, Ecko and Melmac were other manufacturers. I found some really poorly made Chinese melamine utensils at a 99 cent store a few years ago.

But not long afterwards, they again became unavailable.

Since then, I was able to find them at last once at The Complete Kitchen in Kahala Mall, but other times they simply weren’t around.

This time, my friend found the Huzler versions online at Bed Bath & Beyond, and it looks like they’re available at Amazon and a few other retailers.

In any case, my kitchen is now well stocked once again, and I’m a very happy camper.