Filberts

... our style of nutcracker ...

My mother called the nuts we are using at our house, filberts.

I know them best as hazelnuts when I buy them at the store.

That is my favourite way to purchase them – already in a package with their perfect round shapes.

 Michael knows the hazelnuts as the first nuts he ever tried to crack with nutcrackers.

He has been wanting to use my decorative nutcrackers since I explained to him that the mouth that would open and close could crack nuts.  I didn't make it clear to him that mine were decorative, and so he kept trying to use them -- if not one, then another and I have many.

... I am looking for this style of nutcracker ..

In order to save the nutcrackers from total destruction, I purchased some utilitarian tools.  Just a cheap pair.

I thought I would buy Brazil nuts when I was checking out what nuts I should buy to let him practice on.

I had second thoughts about the Brazil nuts since those shells are so hard and I have never had success in cracking one and getting just the perfect nut out of it.

I tested the shells of almond. Too soft. On reflection, I see those are the ones I should have bought!

... a nutting stone ...

Every time Michael comes over to read from his primer chapbook, he wants to crack a few nuts first.

 Not to eat the nuts.

Just to see if he can play a bit, get leverage and then crack the nut, putting them in one bowl and the shells in another.

 I have yet to show him where the hinge is, but we have studied the tool to find the places that give us the best grip.

 ...a 19th century nutcracker using indirect pressure ...

I was thinking about all of that this morning when I was sweeping up the shells from the floor and wiping the splinters of the nuts off of the island.

 They have spread far and wide, reading into the laundry room.


I could feel shells crunching under my feet.

I wonder if I will miss that part of Christmas when he grows too old to want to crack shells.

Arta