Wood

You may have noticed that almost all of the utensils I use in my kitchen are made of wood. This is partly because I think plastic is gross, but has more to do with the fact that I think wood is beautiful! The trouble is, wood doesn't stay beautiful for very long if you don't look after it. (Put it in a dishwasher and it's toast!)

So, every 6 months or so I devote an hour to wood maintenance. Basically, all you have to do is oil everything (cutting boards, utensils, pizza peels, bowls, rolling pins, knife handles, etc.). The difficulty comes in chosing the correct oil. I looked into this for some time before finally deciding on mineral oil as my preservative of choice. I balked at this for some time, thinking it was some evil petroleum product and wondering who would ever put such stuff on a food contact surface. I came around when I found out that people actually drink this stuff and you can get it in the pharmacy (make sure you get the one meant for human consumption, I don't know if there is another version, but just sayin'.) I did consider several plant based oils first, but ALL of them have the risk of going rancid, and if that happens you can pretty much kiss your utensil good-bye because you'll never get it out of there. I have some spoons from Stéphane de Sève (a vendor at the Landsdowne Farmer's Market) that I REALLY like, so there was no way I'd risk that.

All you need to do is gather your supplies and start oiling. I use a cutting board as a base to keep things clean. I pour a big blob of oil on there and use that to soak a rag which I use to apply the oil to the utensils. It's important to use a cloth rag here, since paper will just disintegrate and make a God-awful mess. I save old tea towels for this job.

Here are the finished utensils. Olive wood and beech wood respond particularly well and look really nice when done. I think I may have a hoarding issue in the works here.

For cutting boards, make sure you do both sides and the edges.

As you can see, it makes a world of difference!

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to the kitchen store to check out the spoons -- I think I have room for just one more.