As I became sensitized to this issue, I became more and more aware that there is not a widely used solution. I have a number of friends who are serious cooks. They have all sorts of gadgets in their kitchens. But for real protection against bad cuts? Nothing. Except health insurance.

This is the answer. This is a cook’s glove — made for precisely this purpose, to protect hands against cutting. It was actually designed to protect hands for oyster shucking — involving, obviously, a very sharp instrument, and very high levels of force, which means that a slip entails a quick hospital trip. But, it has a much wider application. It can be used in any kitchen task where cutting occurs, including the (very treacherous) early morning, sleep-deprived bagel-slicing.

It’s made of chain mail. As in the Middle Ages. Real, small-link, stainless steel, non-rusting chain mail. It’s carefully crafted for comfort and performance (sorry, that sounds like a car ad, but it’s true), and it has a leather wrist band for closure. And it’s quite beautiful.

It turns out that medieval chain mail still, today, offers a unique combination of flexibility and laceration protection that’s never been bettered. The hundreds (thousands? I haven’t counted) of small links in the glove conform to any human movement/contortion (more on that to come, a little later). You cannot penetrate them, from any angle, with a blade, or even with the point of a blade.

To me, this is one of the more unexpected products in the Salon Store. It isn’t the result of a high design exercise by a schooled European designer. Yet, in terms of elegance and thoughtfulness, it’s every bit as interesting. It literally repurposes an ancient invention.

That was, after all, why chain mail was invented. The whole point was to protect against incursions from sharp blades and points of blades. So now, this ancient legacy, with its dark history protection in truly awful, barbaric fighting — becomes civilized and protects against slips of the French Chef’s hand.

This particular glove is a very high-quality, lovely piece. It will last a lifetime. It’s very comfortable to wear. You might even decide to wear it out in the evening (see our wonderful Michael Jackson book, “Before He Was King”). In any event, a wonderful unexpected gift for anyone you know who cooks. Or, honestly, for anyone you know who spends time in the kitchen and is clumsy.

It’s possible, of course, that an overly serious chef might view it as wimpy or implying a lack of confidence. I’d turn a blind eye to this possibility. It is, after all, a heartfelt gesture of support and concern.

For me, there was another layer of amusement in finding the chain mail glove. Both of my sons went through that phase where they loved medieval lore. Knights, jousting, castles, etc. As a consequence, we used to go to medieval faires (as they call themselves). They come in greater and lesser versions, and are held all over the United States, mostly in the fall. They draw together an interesting crowd of folks, most of whom have normal lives — teachers, cops, lawyers — but, who also have a second life, as medievalists. They dress in period clothes and … chain mail.

You wander over many, many acres, watching people forge weapons, sword-fight, joust and engage in a whole range of activities drawn from the ancient court. There are stages and jesters and contests and medieval rides. By the evening, after a lot of mead-drinking, it’s all pretty bleary, and sometimes ends with a truly weird medieval rock concert.

So, from this, I had actually become aware that you can buy a range of real chain mail outfits, made by serious modern craftsman, using medieval methods. Replicas of the real thing, worn by serious adults, in re-creations of ancient combat. At the faires, you can actually, sometimes, watch it being made, which is pretty cool. I just didn’t know about the glove and cooking, which kind of completed the picture.

And this leads to one final chain mail fact, in terms of chain mail and contortions (a term I said that I would revisit). Due to my attendance at the faires, I also became aware that a lot of the medievalist folks are club-goers. And not a few are fetishists. So, you can buy chain mail club wear — and fetish wear.

We are not featuring chain mail club wear or fetish wear at the Salon Store this holiday season. I suggested it, but I was overruled. If you would like us to feature these items, please make your views known to me. I will be glad to plead my case once again with our CEO.

You know the drill with traditional Delft china.  It’s white, high-quality, handmade china with unmistakable blue graphic treatments.  Made in Delft, Netherlands, it is collected worldwide.  (Delft was actually a copy of Ming-era porcelain from China, which the Dutch East India Co. began to import into Holland in the early 17th century.  The Dutch copies gained a reputation of their own, and Delftware became a highly desired species of pottery.)

Of course, imagery on Delftware is not street art.  It’s about as traditional as you can get.  So L&R took the Delft color palette and product silhouette and imposed New York graffiti imagery. The result is my favorite china.  It’s beautiful, formal, elegant. But it’s also gritty and provocative.  It makes you think about your preconceptions about art and taste and beauty.  It’s truly fascinating.

I was in my 20s when modern graffiti emerged in the U.S.  I remember going to New York during the days of the Subway Movement and watching the transformation. It was a wild time. The art exploded in a broken city. There was crime, economic collapse and crumbling infrastructure. New York was bankrupt.  And there was this incredible new form of expression … everywhere. Overnight.

The classic tableau for me — driving in from Boston — was a stripped car on the side of the West Side Highway, plundered to a skeleton, upside down like a dead bug, under a huge wall of graffiti.  It felt dangerous, and threatening, and new, and totally different. A doorway into a new and very uncertain era.

Having decided to feature the New York Delft china and having been led to recall the incredible energy of the graffiti movement, I thought we’d also offer a couple of books in the store to memorialize those times.  “Subway Art” by Cooper and Chalfant is a definitive book,  a great collection of subway photography.  Truly stunning.  Jon Naar’s book “The Birth of Graffiti” chronicles the birth of the movement. It originally was published with 40 museum-quality photos; in the reprints it has been expanded to incorporate many more. Both of these books are absolutely beautiful.

Taken together, these products now reflect an important piece of cultural history. Americans — having an uneasy relationship with street art and insurgency — have waged war on graffiti. Just last year, Shepard Fairey was Barack Obama’s official campaign artist. Yet when Fairey had an exhibition earlier this year at Boston’s Museum of Contemporary Art and put up some street art in Boston to celebrate it, he was arrested.  Los Angeles, the modern epicenter of urban art, has recently launched a new crackdown. The energy of underground art in public spaces provokes a strong counter-reaction.

Which is very different from the equilibrium in arguably more culturally mature European countries. I was in Germany this past summer.  Berlin is covered in graffiti — it is a graphic city.  The residents push strollers past walls of street art.  No one seems to mind and, for the most part, it seems to be viewed as a part of the city’s cultural rebuilding. I put together a little gallery of East Berlin graffiti photos, you can see them here.

As a result of the American attitude, the amazing imagery of New York graffiti is now almost entirely gone. Which is, in a very real way, a tragedy. At least we have these wonderful books to commemorate it. And we have Lovegrove & Repucci’s Delft china to give us a quite unexpected and fascinating perspective on that art form, and to make us think a little bit about the comparison to other art forms that, as a culture, we seem to consider more “respectable.”