Soup’s On: A steel triangle dinner bell to call guests to table

Shhh -- this is what I’m getting the husband for Christmas: a steel triangle dinner bell, to signal to guests that it’s time to sit down at the table. They’re inevitably an unruly bunch, wandering around the garden, rubbing scented geranium leaves between their fingers, calling up to find out what’s growing on the trellis, whether they can pick some tangerines. Or getting so involved in storytelling that it becomes hard to herd them toward the table mid-story.

But this is the solution. And quite a handsome one. Designed by Pat Kim of (where else?) Brooklyn, the steel triangle hangs from a leather loop with an integrated brass rod for banging the steel and sounding out “Dinner time!”

Measuring 7.375 by 8.25 by 0.5 inches, the dinner bell is $50 from Best Made Co., an online source for wonderful, best-of-class essentials.

There are plenty of other things on the website you might want to give a look, such as a set of Seamless & Steakfast Enamelware for two from a European manufacturer using World War II-era equipment ($98). You can also buy bowls, plates and mugs in sets of two or six.

There’s a heavy duck canvas apron with metal rivets and denim reinforcements and -- most important -- a big pocket in the front ($58) or an ingenious Ganji Kankiri can opener from Japan ($16), small enough to make a surprising stocking stuffer. Even better, a salt and salt cellar combo for $15 that includes a quarter pound of hand-harvested salt from Oregon’s coastal waters and a cherry wood salt cellar.

I’m kind of hoping for an English-made 8-ounce pewter flask in a waxed canvas case ($98) for the trail. Doesn’t Santa get something too?

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Twitter: @sirenevirbila