From Shipwreck to Spatula: The Hudson Valley Maker Turning Rescued Wood into Kitchen Tools

Think about the spoon you stir your soup with. Chances are it came in a multipack, made somewhere far away, and you couldn't say a single thing about it. Now imagine reaching for one carved from a neighbor's fallen maple, or shaped to match the exact spoon your grandmother cooked with for forty years. Same job. Completely different feeling.

That second spoon exists, and it's made right here in the Hudson Valley. In a basement workshop in Napanoch, Amy Moliterno transforms scrap wood, sidewalk finds, and woodshop leftovers into kitchen tools built to be used every day and kept for decades. Plenty of home cooks are swapping out their plastic utensils these days, and wood is the natural place to land. If you've ever wanted your kitchen to reflect your values or searched for a gift for a cook who has everything, her work is worth knowing about.

She calls the business Flotsam, a maritime term for what floats to the surface after a shipwreck. The things left behind that still have somewhere to go. It is a fitting name for a studio built entirely on wood that someone else gave up on.

Flared Spatulas

Amy spent a decade at sea, most recently as a mate for the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Living in Boston between voyages, she kept noticing furniture put out on the streets for trash pickup. "I'm the type of person that has to save everything," she told me. "I'd see it and go, oh my gosh, there's so much good wood."

She had learned woodworking from her father growing up in Virginia, and in 2020 she stepped off the water to pursue it full time. She started with furniture, but customers kept asking for spoons and spatulas. Now kitchen tools are the heart of the business, many of which are inspired by her husband, a former professional cook. In 2022 she settled in Napanoch, where every piece is still cut, shaped, and sanded by one pair of hands.

When I asked Amy where her commitment to reducing waste comes from, she referenced her grandmother's refrigerator. "My grandma always had a little thing on the refrigerator that said, use it up, wear it out, make it do, do without," she said. "I've just always not liked waste. That translates into everything I do."

These days, most of her wood comes to her. Retiring woodworkers clearing out their shops, local businesses with offcuts too small to use, hobbyists with reject slabs from backyard trees. Whoever calls, her answer is the same: sure, I'll come look at it.

Wide Spurtle

The care extends to the mailbox. Uncomfortable with single-use packaging for online orders, Amy sources used bubble mailers through Freecycle and a local vet's office that saves their extras. Upon request, your spoon arrives in a mailer on its second life, which feels exactly right for a business called Flotsam.

My favorite story from our conversation was about a wooden spoon chipped in a blender. A customer sent Amy her grandmother's old spoon and asked if she could remake it. Amy traced the original, carved a new one to match it exactly, and sent both spoons back together. "Those are my favorite projects," she said. "Making something very special."

If you have wood with a story, a fallen tree or a board from a family barn, Amy welcomes those requests. If it's good hardwood, of a manageable size, she can turn it into a spoon or spatula, and if not, she'll talk through what else it could become.

Every food-safe piece goes through a month-long finishing process: rounds of sanding, a coat of tung oil and citrus that cures into a hard film over three weeks, then a polish with Amy's own beeswax and mineral oil paste, made with wax from Uncommon Bees and local New York hives. Care is simple. No dishwasher, hand wash with soap and water, and refresh a daily workhorse with wax every month or so. Instructions come with every order.

Bud Vases

Great news! Amy set up a special offer for Hudson Valley EATS readers. Use code HVEATS15 at checkout for 15% off any purchase through the end of the year. If you prefer not to type the code, this link applies it automatically: www.flotsammade.com/?coupon=HVEATS15.

Where to Find Flotsam

Shop online at flotsammade.com, where every item shows whether it's in stock (ships in about three days) or made to order (about four weeks). Locally, find her work at the Gardiner Collective, Accord Market, Kingston Village Coffee and Village Grocery, Damn Good Honey in Kerhonkson, High Falls Food Coop, and the Bashakill Bazaar in Wurtsboro. Every piece carries two histories: the story of the wood it was rescued from, and the story you'll add in your own kitchen. The things we leave behind still have value. Some of it can live in your utensil drawer.