I have children & children like to eat. The older they get the more they like to eat; 3 square meals a day & snacks in between. Some days the thought of having to prepare even one more meal is enough to give me a case of the screaming heebie~jeebies & make me completely brain dead. Food is the bane of my life. Needless to say my kitchen is not my favourite room in the house!For children & food to give them & a kitchen to cook it in I am heartily grateful & it is true I like the idea of a well used family kitchen ~ so long as I am not the one in it.
I like pretty things in my kitchen: hanging pots of trailing viney things, delicate china cups in blue & white, bright cornucopia baskets overflowing with fruit, scented candles & I like kitchen smells: yeasty bread, baking cookies, soup makings, the sharp scent of basil...If I were rich I would have a kitchen full of pretty things & I would never cook in there. Never.
Unfortunately I am not rich ~ nor ever likely to be. Week after week I would trail my long row of ducklings through the shops bypassing all the pretty things I knew would be money wasted, the inevitable victim of children with more enthusiasm than couthe, buying the mundane essentials. Week after week I would console myself with the *one days*. One day the children would be big enough not to destroy delicate things. One day my kitchen would be my own. One day I could afford this or that trinket. One day...
For years I made do with a battered wooden cutting board, though my shallow little heart hankered after a pretty glass one. Perish the thought in this house! I despised my plain wooden board though it served me well & faithfully, surviving the untender ministrations of countless children, countless meals, outliving the knives that scored its surface & the pots that scorched it.
Well I have reached that oasis; the one days have arrived & guess what? I am still using my battered wooden cutting board. Yep. Research has found wood deals better with bacteria than plastic. The type of wood doesn't matter. Wood is a natural antiseptic & studies have shown wood kills bacteria within 3 minutes. Wood is also self~healing. The sort of shallow scores made when preparing food close of their own accord. Hot sudsy water & a good scrub is all that's needed to clean it. They are far less likely to harbour mildew than a plastic board & won't damage your expensive knives like steel or glass. A new board, if you want to be fussy, can be sealed with mineral oil...& besides wood is pretty. I like pretty...but I already said that.
7 comments:
I have several cutting boards of different sizes. A small wooden one for a quick chop of something small. A medium plastic one for slightly larger tasks and then there's the Granddaddy of cutting boards. My big wooden one actually made from a section of bowling alley! My ex-husband is quite gifted in wood working, building etc and he was tearing out an old building with a bowling alley about 30 years ago. He stripped, sanded and whatever elsed it to where it's very functional. I use it alot! I just wish it had a "well" along the edges to collect juices form carved meats and such. My last cutting board is a pretty glass one for looks and I sit the "crock" pot on it when it's being used.
I am curious what a crock pot is on your side of the world? What do you call what I posted about?
Have a lovely weekend!
Connie
Now I dislike--truly dislike--the glass and plastic ones! Always have. I believe they dull the cutting knives more too. Give me a wooden board any day.
In fact, my grandmother have a huge one she used to roll out pie crusts. I have two nice ones, just big enough for pie crust and they have permanent places on the counters of my kitchen. Love them for kneaded bread dough also--something I will be doing today, in fact.
Thanks for the info, Ganeida. I did know some of it, but not all. Also, good for disinfecting cutting boards, in case that is not enough for some, is using hydrogen peroxide, but it can dry out the wood so using oil (it can be cooking oil) to treat it now and then is good.
this was a really nice article, ganeida... i love the way you put the words together♥
and oh yes.. i do hear ya! for years i hankered after those expensive tupperware containers- do you know what i mean? the ads show cupboards all full of them fitted just so, everything contained in it's specifically sized container. everything labeled (of course!) well, now years later, come to find out that all that plastic isn't so great and "hygienic" after all. all my mismatched glass jars are better after all... and they even look prettier to me now too;)
love ya, girlie♥
lol Diane, I have mismatched glass too. I *like* glass ~ but my middle 3 [the sporty ones] were very rough on everything & bare feet & shattered galss on my kitchen floor were not a good combination.
Connie: I will come over & discuss crock pots with you. ;)
Seeking: you are right about glass dulling your knives but I didn't think of that back then & seriously I think it was more a hunger for something *pretty* than anything else. The kids just trashed everything, not because they were particularly destructive but they were clumsy. Liddy destroyed a whole dinner setting in one foul swoop, tripping as she carried plates from the table to wash up! *eye roll* You're right about needing those emoticons!
I like wood better. Glass cutting boards are noisy and if I scrape a little it gives me goose bumps. I do keep a plastic one for meat, as it goes in the dishwasher for a good clean afterwards. I am also holding out for "one day" on lots of things, but wood is a good compromise between pretty and useful.
I like pretty things too. Somehow all of my pretty things ended up having four legs and living in a barn. I have a composite board and a wood board. I'm still alive and never have had food poisoning, so I guess it's OK. : )
I have two chopping boards - a small wooden one, which gets used most of the time, and a huge wooden one, given to us by our Pastor, but which only gets used for chopping parsley, as it is so big. It keeps all of the mess in one place, though.
At the moment, we are trying to decide what to do with our kitchen, as I want a pretty kitchen. At the moment, it is functional, but after six years in this home, I need something that reflects my nature and character, not someone else's. I'm still trying to decide whether to replace the cupboard tops!
Post a Comment