I don't make wooden spoons that look like wooden spoons, because wooden spoons have always looked like wooden spoons. (laughs) That's not a good enough reason to make wooden spoon to look like a spoon.
My name is Brad Bernhart and I'm the owner and maker here at Earlywood, where I design and make heirloom quality wooden kitchen utensils. I strive for quality in every single aspect of what we do, I mean with wood choice, the designs that I've come up with. If it doesn't meet my standards I don't let it get out of here.
I'm a mechanical engineer by trade and by train, when I design a product I start with a function that I want the product to be able to handle and I design around the function and whatever the product ends up looking like that's what it looks like. Like if I'm at home cooking a meal I try to step out of the meal and look at it from my analytical engineering side that I've learned from years of being a design engineer. You know whether it's this little tiny corner sharp or they have a tiny radius or how thick is it , how does it feel in your hand. So many things you can think about. I like a more minimalist kind of modern simple thing with tight straight grain that comes across in the woods I've chosen and the design of the products that I make. A lot of them are just really simple and simple is quite often the best, you know.
There is a lot of ways that heirloom quality comes across my products. They're made to last generations that's what it comes down to. I love making products that are going to stick around that long and I know how people love a wooden spoon and just cherish it. And it's like one of their favorite things in the kitchen. And I just love the idea that this stuff's gonna be around that long, people are gonna love it that much. All the colors you see on the words are just their natural colors, Bloodwood, Mexican Ebony Jatobá and Hard Maple, so I don't color the wood at all I just soak them in a bath of clear food-safe mineral oil and that just enhances their natural color.
When I sell a spoon and you know it's a really satisfying feeling just to know that there's all these people out there getting these things I've designed and I've worked on it makes you it was just perfect before they left here. And it's just a good feeling to know that those things are going into their lives and they get to enjoy them.
