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I Just Ordered a Ladle from Amazon
- citricsquid 15y ago£42 / ~$60 seems to be the most expensive pure Ladle I can find: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Alessi-Mirror-Finish-4180-10/dp/B000PS4Q70/ref=sr_1_16?s=kitchen&ie=UTF8&qid=1325223701&sr=1-16 http://www.amazon.co.uk/Alessi-Mirror-Finish-4180-10/dp/B000... Special mention goes to a £172 / ~$230 Exoglass Spatula: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Matfer-Exoglass-Spatula-utensils-kitchen/dp/B0039VAD22/ref=sr_1_1?s=kitchen&ie=UTF8&qid=1325223701&sr=1-1 http://www.amazon.co.uk/Matfer-Exoglass-Spatula-utensils-kit... I was curious what "Exoglass" is, apparently... "It is a special hi-tech plastic developed by Matfer of France. It is used in the handles of their pastry utensils. It is extremely durable, hygienic, and heat resistant. (Both hot and cold extremes)" but there is no reference of the material outside of cooking, is that strange or interesting I'm not sure.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- samlev 15y agoHow is a spatula that's 1.2m long a "simple utensil for your kitchen"? Sure, I guess the design is probably simple, but what type of kitchen do they imagine you're running where you need a spatula that's over a meter long?
- ctdonath 15y agoReminiscent of "Spatula City".
- Ogre 15y agoI just read what someone I've never met wrote about the experience of buying a ladle, then read what a few other people thought about it, and finally wrote something myself on the subject. What the hell is wrong with ME?
- ctdonath 15y ago(Sorry, down vote button is too close to up vote button on a touchscreen. Someone please up vote the heck out of parent.)
- verroq 15y agoMaybe you need the chubby-fingers HN extension.
- dmvaldman 15y agoDid you also look up ladle reviews out of curiosity? This is an untapped gold mine.
- jtchang 15y agoLadles are important.
- randomslices 15y agoI just read all of the above and then realized i am not sure what a ladle exactly is.
- ddw 15y agoGoogle it!
- terinjokes 15y agoI did a very similar thing while buying an ironing board for my mother for Christmas. I thought I was crazy, reading reviews for ironing boards. Two days later, one of them arrived on my doorstep (thank you Amazon Prime…), and the moral of the story is that my mother loves the new ironing board, mainly about how quiet it is compared to the old one, which rivals my age.
- jarek 15y agoTechnically speaking that's the conclusion of your story, not its moral. The moral might be that spending time looking at what seems like basic utilities results in happier users or something. edit at 0 points 5 minutes later: :D
- Vivtek 15y agoI learned something new about US/UK spelling differences today...
- abtinf 15y agowtf, how did this post ever get on the main page? I mean for real? Go buy your own ladles people.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- abtinf 15y agoIn case anyone is wondering, the ladle that inspired my post is: http://www.amazon.com/Zyliss-42320-Ladle/dp/B0018IAHTM/ http://www.amazon.com/Zyliss-42320-Ladle/dp/B0018IAHTM/
- danberger 15y agoI don't blame you with going with this one. I mean, the first sentence of the first post reads "Wow, this is one great ladle."
- e28eta 15y agoYes, in the abstract, this is fairly ridiculous. However, having tried to use kitchen utensils purchased from a dollar store, it's my experience that there are some that are completely useless. So, I too would read reviews before purchasing a ladle online, because the handful of images wouldn't give me a good idea of the quality of the item I was purchasing. Although, I personally would probably buy a ladle at a local store (thrift store if you're looking for a deal), instead of getting it shipped to me.
- abtinf 15y agoAmazon Prime eliminated the shipping charges on my $6.15 ladle. And it's snowing outside. And the physical store has no reviews!
- tmeasday 15y agoYeah, but someone in the store might be able to outline the pros and cons..
- abtinf 15y agoIts like the electronics stores of yesteryear. Any piece of equipment you ask about, regardless of how expensive it might be, will be met with the response "this is a great x, why I have one myself and it is just fantastic".
- wolever 15y agoThis. I clearly remember the day my mental default switched from "trusting sales people" to "ignoring sales people". It was the day my mom was trying to buy a two-line phone, and she had three sales people trying to tell the three different things that she actually wanted ("this cordless phone has two handsets", "this phone has a flash button", "one phone can't have two lines, you need two phones").
- nandemo 15y agoIf I was buying a ladle on amazon, I'd maybe check the reviews (by force of habit if nothing else). But I'd feel silly asking about pros and cons of ladles at the store.
- dddddannyyyyy 15y agoHrm.. I did the same thing last week. Your estimated delivery date is: Wednesday, December 21, 2011 OXO Good Grips Brushed Stainless Steel Ladle Sold by Amazon.com LLC (Amazon.com) $9.99
- templaedhel 15y agoThis is for some reason one of my favorite articles I've read on HN in awhile. Probably because it is so (personally) profoundly true, and reads almost like poetry.
- abtinf 15y agoDoes that make me a programmer poet?
- gcb 15y agonothing there hinted at the programmer part...
- dudurocha 15y agoI felt the same. The personal note, has touched me in a way I cannot remember. We are so used to search stuff, read about stuff and buy stuff, that we forgot how the buying process was not so direct little years ago.
- Groxx 15y agoI sort of read it as something you'd clinically describe to your psychiatrist as the point at which you think you went off the deep-end. I do the very same thing, and their reaction to doing it cracks me up to no end, and I love how it's written!
- veidr 15y agoHaving already put that much effort into it, I would have bought the highest-reviewed ladle, not the cheapest. http://www.amazon.com/OXO-Grips-Brushed-Stainless-Steel/dp/B0001BMXKI/ref=sr_1_1?s=home-garden&ie=UTF8&qid=1325225659&sr=1-1 http://www.amazon.com/OXO-Grips-Brushed-Stainless-Steel/dp/B...
- cfinke 15y agoYou can't go wrong with OXO. They put a noticeable amount of thought into the ergonomics of their kitchen tools that is sorely lacking in most other brands.
- Zak 15y agoAnd now I'm reading ladle reviews on hacker news.
- gcb 15y agothe highest reviewed of the cheap items is always the useless moneypit. you want something in between. cost benefit.
- jtchang 15y agoCan we start a discussion on dish sponges/brushes. This is by far my favorite: http://www.amazon.com/OXO-Good-Grips-Squirting-Brush/dp/B00004OCLK/ref=pd_sim_hg_5 http://www.amazon.com/OXO-Good-Grips-Squirting-Brush/dp/B000... Yes we shall have a discussion on the merits of kitchen utensils on hackernews.
- stcredzero 15y agoThere are some freakin beautiful cheap-as-dirt Chinese made stainless steel ladles out there. Sometimes they show up in the grocery store for a song.
- redthrowaway 15y agoThat's enough of this nonsense on the frontpage. Flagged.
- huhtenberg 15y ago> Flagged. Careful. They took away my flag option when Steve Jobs died, and I still haven't seen it back.
- redthrowaway 15y agoI'm not anticipating a rash of ladle reviews requiring my (apparently unpopular) flagging.
- callahad 15y agoNonsense? I found the post perfectly interesting commentary on the recent cultural transitions that we've all had a hand in shaping. Even the mundane has been transformed.
- redthrowaway 15y agoYou can read as much into it as you want to, but it is essentially a content-less post.
- huhtenberg 15y agoThe intrinsic beauty of the post aside - this sort of in-depth, but cheaply available product insight simply wasn't available before and it is pretty damn useful. What if it's a cheap Chinese ladle that is made of led? What if the handle is too thin and it heats up when left in a hot soup? What if the shape of the bowl is odd? What if the rubber grip falls off after the second use? Any utilitarian gadget could certainly use an usability review. There is absolutely nothing wrong with it. How often do you buy ladles? Exactly. Why not pick a good one then?
- nostromo 15y agoJust get OXO. They're the Apple of the kitchen. Their steel bottle opener is a personal favorite. Most of their stuff will last for decades.
- hammock 15y agoOXO seems to be durable stuff, but the "ergo" handles are too bulky for me- I prefer something with a low profile in the cluttered utensil drawer.
- mechanical_fish 15y agoThis is generally true, but just as Apple produced a couple of dud Macs back in the day so does Oxo occasionally let me down. See above under "spatulas". ;)
- mechanical_fish 15y agoSo, in total seriousness: I'm an amateur baker, I own six spatulas, and only one of them is very good. My second favorite was doing great until I was making a double batch of muffins and the wooden handle came out of the silicone head, and then some muffin batter got into the slot where the handle used to be, and it was obvious that I was never going to get it clean again so I had to throw it away. (Funny thing about this is I vaguely remember Alton Brown predicting this in his own review of spatulas. And then it happened just like he said.) The good one is from Zyliss and is a silicone spatula firmly fused to its plastic handle. I have stirred some pretty viscous tubs of stuff with this spatula and it holds up, plus it's flexible enough to scrape well. My only problem with it is that it's wearing out after a few years; silicone isn't permanent and it develops nicks on the edge. I should go order three more while I'm thinking about it. So I don't think reading ladle reviews is that farfetched at all. (Though for ladles, as for many things, I'd start at the local restaurant supply store. Those stores are big on utility and not as big on hype and markup. And, truthfully, ladles are not a hard thing to get right. Now dishers, on the other hand...) (For some reason I am now having fond memories of Weird Al Yankovic's movie UHF. Fans will know why. ;)
- Hilyin 15y agoOh you haven't learned amazon yet? Let me help you. http://dl.dropbox.com/u/227408/how-to-amazon.png http://dl.dropbox.com/u/227408/how-to-amazon.png
- jamesbritt 15y agoI look at the 1-star reviews first to see just what so bothers people. Often it's something random ("I could not open the plastic wrap") that really has no bearing on the product itself. If no one has a legit killer complaint I look at the middle-star reviews. Sometimes, though, the 1-star reviews point out some flaw or omission that you'd never know about until you owned the thing for a bit, and you end up feeling duped if you bought it (hence the 1-star venom). There's a point, though, where you have to ask yourself what's the worst that happens if you end up with a piece of crap. How much time/money are you out? The problem (as the ladle purchase shows) is that it can become a sort of personal challenge; "I will get the best item for my money!" Even when it make no sense.
- hammock 15y agoThe illuminating thing about the internet for me is not that people comparison shop for simple objects like ladles. It's that there are enough unemployed or lonely(?) people out there who actually have the motivation to write a 250-word review about something as mundane as a plastic ladle.
- pbreit 15y agoI mid-read it as "ladie" at first!
- dhughes 15y agoYou could go to http://www.americastestkitchen.com/ http://www.americastestkitchen.com/ for in-depth reviews of ladles, they get really technical.
- wccrawford 15y agoI started reading reviews online when I wanted my first toaster oven. See, the thing is, I had no idea what I wanted from a toaster oven, or how to judge them. So I read reviews until I found out all the ways they could go wrong, and then I looked for ones that didn't do that. At least, so far as I thought I cared. "Not tall enough" isn't a problem for me because it's for toast and bagel bites. Not really going to be a problem. Ever since then, I read the negative reviews to judge products by their deficiencies. It has worked wonders. I've never had such good appliances and footwear, and I'm not spending an arm and a leg on them, either! This is just one of the ways that the internet is changing our daily lives and we don't even notice. It's quite amazing.
- goatforce5 15y agoThe NYT has an article with how to buy all the kitchen utensils you need for under $200: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/09/dining/09mini.html?pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/09/dining/09mini.html?pagewan... (including a ladle)
- nate 15y agoFunny. But really, you are looking at Amazon reviews because you probably care about the design of every day things. I wish more people did. The people that do tend to be very successful. I think about all the ladles I have ever had. I don't think I have a single one I'd recommend. Here's a few things that pop into my mind as things I wish ladle makers cared about. First, they all have the problem of not being able to catch anything when a bowl gets to the end. There's still stuff there, but a ladle becomes useless at getting the shallow stuff. Why are ladles are shaped like cups with handles? Why couldn't a ladle have a design to help sweep the bottom of round bowls? Second, ladles are awkward to put anywhere after using. Their handles make them oddly balanced to lean on most things. They also tend to get very hot handles when spooning hot mixtures and you leave the thing in the bowl. Third, I'm not sure I've ever successfully used a label to get a full ladle of anything in the target container (my cup) 2 times in a row. Inevitably I spill something somehow.