(Welcome to Janie, one of the finalists vying for a blogging position at the upcoming AT:The Nursery. Comment away.)
It’s never too early to start training your little one on the art of chopstick use.
We’ve all seen adult diners that have to ask for a fork in order to eat their bowl of steaming noodles.
To save your worldly little one from a similar fate, Combi serves up Chopstix, a trainer pair for toddlers (or possibly their parents) with a penchant for sushi.
Sometimes learning to eat Cheerios with your fingers is just not enough.
Combi is a Japanese company that is best known for its extremely portable strollers. Beyond strollers, we discovered a few fun Combi designed accessories like these Chopstix. Not only does eating with these Chopstix create a fun culinary adventure, it also encourages the development of hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills.
It works like this: at stage 1, the orange bridge encourages proper finger technique to hold the chopsticks. Once the child has mastered proper placement of the fingers, at stage 2 the orange bridge can be removed, leaving the yellow wheel as a fulcrum holding the two sticks together. Finally, at stage 3 the yellow wheel is removed and your child is ready for full omikase (or at the very least broccoli).
We test-drove a pair and they work well. The ease of use won’t cause frustration for little ones. Plus, the modern design is affordable. Priced at about $7, you can afford a few extra pairs to throw into your diaper bag, even if it’s just to pick up chicken nuggets. The clean design is appealing to parents, with just enough color and whimsy to make it attractive to kids. Combi pulls it off – more Starck and Graves, than Fisher-Price.
-Janie
© 2009 Apartment Therapy
Cool -- welcome to AT and cool find. If the bright colors were subdued a little bit to, say, invisible, I think they'd be must-haves for a lot of East Asian restaurants.
I think I need those for myself.
Did you pick these up in Manhattan, or online? I'm curious if there's one shop I can go to that's sure to have them. My niece loves her sushi because she loves to dip things. I quite agree!
That is so cute and adorable. I love the idea especialy because sushi es my favorite food. I wouldn't start to teaching my child at the age of one thought it might not be a safe thing to do.
Hi SRR. I bought these online from chitchatbaby.com as I've yet to find them carried in a store here in DC. (shopkeepers -- hint hint).
Another tip: all you have to do is roll up the little paper sleeve (tightly, starting from one end and going to the other) that the chopsticks come in, position it between the two sticks about an inch and a half down (where the yellow circle is), and "figure-eight" a rubber band around that part of the apparatus. Bingo, easy-to-use, "spring-loaded" chopsticks ... that's what they do in the Chinese restaurants for the kids!
All, Buy Buy Baby (in Manhattan and elsewhere) sells these in their feeding section.
the writing is choppy and its "diners WHO have to ask..." not "that"
For all their advancements in other areas I still cannot understand why oriental food is still eaten with the most primitive utensils ever
When someone has designed a fork for you why would you continue to use two sticks - it makes no sense and is just another way of being elitist without any purpose
In no other task would you eschew a well-designed practical tool in favour of a less practical one - its madness
Those who use forks have more sense!!
Janie, have you recently been writing for an outlet that demands objectivity and very little authorial voice? The facts are all there, but the entry reads like you're backing off on sharing your unique voice and point of view.
Was your test drive with a small child? There's a story there, if you tell it.
yes violetsrose, we "orientals" are just trying to be elitist. 5000 years ago we formed a cabal designed solely to focus on and embarass people like yourself and we decided chopstick were the way to do it. I am glad our plan has worked out so well.
I would say, in general, that Orientals or Mongoloids or what have you have mastered the art of forking. So have the Japs, but only after WWII, and only after a lot of training sessions by dedicated missionaries.
I would say, in general, that Orientals or Mongoloids or what have you have mastered the art of forking. So have the Japs, but only after WWII, and only after a lot of fork training sessions by dedicated missionaries.
Violetsrose,
Another way to look at it is that they're delicately and elegantly picking up their food while you're violently stabbing at it with a piece of metal. Also, in many Asian countries, having knives on the table is considered barbaric.
Geeze, talk about myopic...
I never mentioned knives - they are cutting implements - you don't use them to EAT with - you should never put a knife in your mouth - its very bad manners - I'm talking about EATING implements - the fork and the spoon - and you should never use a fork to stab - its a lifting device - but still a far more efficient one than two sticks!! - I've never seen ANYONE using chopsticks looking elegant - they tend to hunch over their bowls or whatever trying to limit the distance between mouth and food to limit the amount that drops on the way - messy!
and the elitism I was referring to is shown by Westerners who single out for ridicule people who can't eat their chinese take-aways with a chopstick - well why should they?