Babies LOVE plastic utensils, metal bowls, empty boxes and most other garbage-type items. If you didn't buy it specifically for your child to use as a toy, it is the best thing they've ever laid hands on.
If I hand my son a plastic spatula, he'll run around like a wild man entertaining himself for hours beating on walls and pretty much everything else with that spatula. Do any of the fancy, store-bought toys with flashing lights and buttons galore thrill him like a plastic utensil and a metal bowl? Not at all! He might play with those toys, but not with as much glee and not for as long a time as a ladle or whisk will keep him happy. Did you spend one hundred and fifty dollars on the latest and greatest hip toy? Then your baby will want to play with the box it came it and will give the toy little more than a passing glance.
The bonus of this particular baby like is if you happen to be at a non-child-friendly relative or friend's house, they have ready-made toys in their kitchen and little one will play, leaving the adults free to converse and visit with each other. The downside is, of course, you have to be careful of little trash-pickers getting into the garbage can to fish out "super fun" milk jugs, boxes and cans that Mommy and Daddy so rudely put into a yucky, hard-to-reach place instead of in their toy boxes.
