i'll bowl you over

my mom asked for stainless steel mixing bowls for her birthday. i had been planning on a hot, muscular man dressed as tarzan swinging into her office on a green vine with an elephant in tow and a bushel full of berries, but she asked for bowls. fine, mom, tarzan is shelved for another year.

but bowls. sure, they don't quite yell "whoo-hoo! happy birthday, mom!" but ask and ye' shall receive. after trolling the web, comparing sizes, shininess, and features, i strolled over to crate & barrel and checked out a few different kinds. the bowls we have at home are several, several years old, and they do their job and that's about it. hold liquidy stuff or salads or whatever= yes. perform cartwheels while balancing my checkbook and scrubbing the toilet= no. so i wanted these bowls to be great. something my mom could use for years and years and years and feel like she couldn't live without them.

there i was, in crate & barrel. i placed 2 sets on a table and sat there for about a half hour, picking each one up, spinning them and such, swirling green silicone whisks in them, stacking them. the sales associates kept swarming by. "can i help you, miss?" "have you made a decision, ma'am?" "would you stop toppling the displays and scaring off the non-freak customers with your quality assurance tests?" luckily, i finally came up with the winner. obviously, the other one was the runner-up. or the loser. call it whatever you wish.

main factors in chosing the winning bowls: size and the non-stick bottom over the shiny, mirror-like quality and pouring spouts and handles. you could probably swirl double recipes of brownie mix in the winner for hours, and the bowls would still stick nicely to your tabletop. ¡que bueÑo!