Day 10: Today's Pick — A $9 Ceramic Spoon Rest I Think About Constantly

I have used wadded paper towels as spoon rests for fifteen years. I have used the lid of a jar. I have used a saucer. I have used a piece of foil placed gingerly on a counter. I have not, until eight months ago, owned an actual spoon rest.

The spoon rest is a $9 piece of glazed ceramic shaped like a fat smiling fish. It is two inches tall, four inches long, glazed in a coastal blue with a white belly. The fish's open mouth is the spoon-rest cradle. The eye is a single dot of black underglaze. It is silly. It is my favorite kitchen object.

What it does well

• The cradle holds a wooden spoon, a silicone spatula, or a small ladle without sliding off
• The blue glaze hides minor sauce stains between washes
• It's dishwasher safe (top rack)
• It's heavy enough that it doesn't move when you set a hot spoon down on it

The maker

A small ceramicist named Lina, who works out of a studio in Asheville, NC, and sells through her website plus a single shop in Brooklyn. She fires in batches of about 80 pieces every six weeks. Pieces sell out within an hour of restock. (Sign up for her email list. The notification arrives 24 hours before restock.)

Why this small object matters

Stick with me here. There's a thing that small good objects do, when they're chosen rather than tolerated. The spoon rest sits next to my stove. I see it every time I cook. It is silly. It makes me happy. The cumulative effect of seeing a small silly object every day is that the kitchen, slightly, feels more like a place I want to be.

I have been thinking about this a lot lately. About how the difference between a kitchen that feels like a chore zone and a kitchen that feels like a workshop is mostly small choices. About how a $9 piece of ceramic can be doing more interior-design work than a $400 light fixture.

I am not going to claim a single fish-shaped spoon rest is a worldview. But I am going to claim that buying small good objects on purpose — and then living with them every day — is one of the few household practices that actually improves daily life.

The spoon rest is part of the practice. So is a chunky-ceramic mug from a friend. So is a bone-handled paring knife. So is, frankly, a daily picks email.

That is a long defense of a small object.

How to actually buy

linaceramics dot com. Sign up for restock alerts. Check at noon eastern on restock day.

Tomorrow: an indie video game made by one person about an empty parking lot. I cried.