Inspector Collector

Mystery Object - what is this thing?

Mysterious Object #1

What are these things pictured below?  I purchased the plastic-handled one 5 years ago in Holmes Beach, FL.  Hundreds of people checked it out at the annual collector's day at Brooklyn's fabulous City Reliquary but no one has known for sure - not yet at least. Recently I found a second one which is  nearly identical except for its wood-handle. The metal is about as thin as a razor blade but nowhere near as sharp and much more pliant.  Please tell me what I've got -- drinks are on me for the first person to prove what these things were made to do.

I'ev got a collection of a few dozen mystery objects and I'm not alone: check the photos of thing-a-ma-bobs at Rob and the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, and try the "cultural history mystery" of the Kaibab Paiute people of Pipe Spring, Arizona. 

Roast Chicken on Roosevelt Avenue

My first-ever photo essay is in the Winter 2007 issue of Gastronomica, a journal of food and culture now available at major newsstands.  The photo-essay has 4 photographs and a short text about the dozens of roast chicken restaurants on Roosevelt Avenue in Queens, NY, the world's most ethnically diverse locale.

Do hand-painted signs of food bring you big smiles and hunger pangs? Me too.  Maybe we should hire Sammy to decorate our kitchens – he paints a heck of a chicken neck!