One Olive Trunk, One Bowl, and a Rim the Tree Grew Itself
A machine turns a bowl out of glued staves in four minutes. This one is cut out of a single trunk of an olive tree that stopped fruiting after a century, and the bark line around the rim is where the tree ended. $87 direct from the workshop instead of the $198 the same bowl carries in a store.
Ostuni Olive Wood Serving Bowl
£66.00
Almost Every Wooden Bowl in a Store Is Glued Out of Strips
Turn one over and you will see the seams. Strips of acacia or rubberwood pressed together, turned on a lathe in a few minutes and varnished. The glue is the weak line. A hot kitchen, a dry radiator winter, one long soak in the sink, and the bowl opens along a seam that was never wood in the first place.
A Bowl You Have to Put Away Is a Bowl You Stop Reaching For
The plastic mixing bowl goes back in the cupboard. The glass one lives on the top shelf and comes down twice a year. What actually gets used is what sits out, and what sits out has to be worth looking at on an empty table on a Tuesday morning, not only under a salad on a Sunday.
Cut Out of One Trunk, So There Is No Seam to Open
The trunk of an olive tree that stopped fruiting after a century dries twelve months in open air. Then the hollow is cut out of that one piece with a curved gouge, worked across four grits at the bench, and given three coats of cold-pressed linseed with ten days between each. Fourteen hours of bench work, and nothing in it that can come unglued.
Four Things That Separate This From the Bowl on the Store Shelf
What changes when the bowl is cut out of a trunk instead of assembled out of strips
What Separates This From a Turned Store Bowl
Six things that decide whether it is still on the table in twenty years
Ostuni Olive Wood Serving Bowl
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Turned Acacia Bowl From a Store Shelf
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|---|---|---|
| Cut out of one trunk, no glued staves anywhere | ||
| Bark rim left on, so no two outlines repeat | ||
| Twelve months air drying before the first cut | ||
| Three coats of cold-pressed linseed, ten days apart | ||
| Numbered in the workshop ledger before it ships | ||
| Lifetime warranty against cracking and splitting |
One trunk, one bowl · Bark rim left on · Lifetime warranty
Notes From People Who Had Already Replaced Two Wooden Bowls
What it holds, and what they stopped buying.
Week One: It Comes Out of the Box and Never Goes Back In
Most people put fruit in it before they put food in it, because it is going to sit on the counter anyway. The grain darkens a shade in the first months and then holds. One coat of mineral oil a winter is the whole of the upkeep, and the bark rim stays exactly as the tree left it.
Put One Trunk on Your Table
Here is what ships to you:
· 1 Ostuni olive wood serving bowl, about 14 inches long
· Its number from the workshop ledger, written on the card
· A care card: damp cloth, one coat of mineral oil a year
· Wrapped in unbleached kraft paper, packed in a plain box
Common Questions Before You Order
Straight answers for anyone who has already replaced a wooden bowl once.