Bob Gilmour

Some years ago … around 2001 … I got tired of using cheap mass-produced wooden cooking utensils in my kitchen. I have cooked all my adult life both privately and for paying guests and finally came to the opinion that life is just too short to put up with poorly designed, machine-spawned cooking tools.

I am a great fan of minimal design and this seemed like also a great opportunity to address another thing that was happening at around the same time … a growing desire to revisit my creative roots.

One night, whilst making spaghetti sauce, it occurred to me that the $5 wooden spoon I was stirring the food with was very 'ordinary', pretty inefficient, rather uncomfortable to hold … and was covered in black mould of the tropics. At that moment, I had a clear idea for a replacement utensil that would be a joy to use for all my styles of cooking.

So, armed with a simple idea, a piece of off-cut floorboard, pencil, a jigsaw and an electric grinder … the next morning I created my first "Classic Stirrer". Since 2001, several thousand more Classic Stirrers, somewhat more refined than the rough original, but still the same shape, have gone out to every corner of the globe.

That's how it started.