The Wonderful Husband and I are just over 10 years into our marriage and we seem to be reaching the expiration date of some of the items that we received as wedding gifts. I’m not sure how the toaster and the bath towels know exactly how to give out at the same time, but they are not the only traitors who seem to want out of this relationship. At any rate, I am oddly sentimental about these gifts, as all of them came from cherished family and friends and I am reluctant to part with them.

My favorite room in the house is my kitchen and I spent a lot of time researching and creating my wedding registry. Additionally, I chose a lot of “once in a lifetime” purchases when it came to pots and pans and knives. I enjoy cooking and I know that in many cases, quality cooking tools are an investment that is worth making.It is rare that a day goes by that I don’t use my heavy duty Le Creuset skillet. Every time I’m whipping up tacos for dinner, again, my mind wanders to my college dorm mate Dave, who gifted us with the fire engine red pot. From there, I jump to our adventures on the eighth floor of Sleeper Hall and staying up all night cramming for organic chemistry finals. Dave does some of the best accents and impersonations on the planet and our study sessions were never boring. By the time we’re ready to say “Ole,” I’m having giggle fits that I can’t quite explain to the kids.When I get maudlin about my kitchen accessories, my eye wanders to a stack of steel bowls. These bowls, all 16 of them, may be the most valuable items in my kitchen. They were a gift from my grandmother. Gift giving was something Gram absolutely delighted in doing. She was generous to a fault, however, her true gift was her generosity and definitely not her gift selection ability. That pink bunny suit in “A Christmas Story”? I am still surprised when I don’t see her name on the “From” tag.I had specifically not put mixing bowls on my registry, as I already owned a stoneware set that I had snagged at some sort of warehouse sale for quite a bargain. The three of them were solid and dependable: small, medium and large. They nested together, and with their bright coloring were as pleasant to look at as they were to use. The 16 unwieldy, boring, stainless steel bowls looked to me like a storage nightmare. As I opened the gift at my shower, I smiled and nodded and tried my best not to drop all of them all over the floor while trying to gracefully pack them back into the box that only moments before had contained them. Gram smiled back at me, with just a hint of mischief in her eyes. With 64 years of marriage under her belt, having raised her younger brothers and sisters, and three of her own children, Gram knew exactly what she was doing with those 16 steel bowls.Those bowls have done it all. Hurricane Sandy hit and the kitchen ceiling started leaking? We grabbed the bowls to catch the leaks until the WH was able to fix them. Someone’s sick? Puke bowls for everyone! I can remember one particularly awful round of stomach virus that had the four of us (E was still just a twinkle in our eyes) absolutely laid flat. The WH would be running to empty one bowl while I was running a fresh one to replace it while simultaneously vomiting into our own bowls. Christmas cookie time? We’ve got plenty of bowls to chill seven varieties of dough in … and don’t worry, they’ve all been run through the extra sanitary cycle on the dishwasher.Those pots have served as a drum and cymbal set for all of my kids. We’ve had parades where we’ve donned our “helmets” and marched through the house. Recently, E has claimed the two smallest bowls, formerly used by me to hold separated egg parts, for her own toy kitchen. Somehow, those bowls have also become our go-to bowls for movie night popcorn. Once, when I was having a particularly frustrating day, I even drop kicked one of them at the wall. I’m not proud of myself for that maneuver, but the permanent dent in that particular bowl is a reminder that it’s better to take aggression out on the inanimate objects than the animate ones.I miss my Gram dearly and it’s hard to believe it’s been four years since she left me, but those bowls and the lesson that went with them will never leave my kitchen.Liz Pinkey is a contributing writer to the Times News. Her column appears weekly in our Saturday feature section.