After years in the kitchen, I finally learned how to clean the inside of my spatula. How embarrassing. (Photo copyright 2013 Laura Groch)

One of my favorite kitchen utensils is the simple spatula. The kind that scrapes bowls and pans  (not the kind that flips fried eggs). It’s great for getting those last little blobs out of bowls, bottles and blenders.

BUT — I’ll be honest with you — I could never get mine completely clean.

Little bits of I-don’t-know-what got under the handle and stayed there in a state of  unreachable and permanent grodiness. Yes, the blade part was spotless, but — that ick under the handle bugged me. Until I read online about the dirtiest places in the kitchen and how to clean them.

Spatula was right up there — as well as how to TAKE IT APART to clean it. Most spatulas are built the same, wrote the posters (www.recipe.com/blogs/cooking/nine-dirtiest-places-in-your-kitchen-youd-be-surprised) — you can basically just grasp the blade (as in photo above) and yank it apart (photo below).

Well. All these years of cooking (and cleaning) and I had no idea you could take a spatula apart. I felt pretty dumb.

I marched to the kitchen and took mine out of the drawer. Yank! Pop! and there it was in two pieces.

Reader, I scrubbed it to a fare-thee-well, inside and out. As those of you who also didn’t know this little tidbit will no doubt be doing shortly! :<)