Against the grain

Eliminating some plastic from your life is an easy, quick way to reduce your 'chemical load' (that's a catch phrase from the film The Human Experiment...catchy, isn't it?) Plastic has its merits, for sure -- the collision that totaled my car last year comes to mind -- but I just don't need that much of it, day in and day out.

One of my errands last week was to bring our more frequently-used knives to be sharpened. I've never sharpened them myself, for fear of ruining them, so I let the professionals do it. There's a great, locally-owned cutlery shop in my town, and I feel great about supporting a small business.

My small talk with the owner went something like this: my knives need sharpening because I'm too chicken sh*t to try it myself at home; what else should I be doing to take care of them; whadaya mean, plastic cutting boards are bad for cutlery?

Did you know that? I didn't. Maybe I'm a sucker, and he saw a chance to sell some swampland in Florida. Maybe he caught me during one of those moments (and I have a lot of them) when I still don't yet feel like a real grownup but I play one on TV so I'll just go with whatever seems like the grownup thing to do.

Or maybe I saw an opportunity to do something that was good for my home and me. Replacing plastic cutting boards with wooden ones will keep those knives from dulling and keep a little bit of plastic out of my life (and my dinner).

The debate between plastic and wooden boards often comes down to food-borne bacteria. Those plastic boards may dull your knives, but they'll never make you sick. Or will they? If I'm not supposed to do anything to heat a plastic water bottle (because hot water would make chemicals leach out of the plastic), then shouldn't the same logic apply to carving an oven-fresh (and blazing hot) piece of meat on a plastic board?

I picked up a cute 10x10 Boos Block, figuring it was a good gateway piece to some bigger, higher-quality butcher block-style cutting boards. Getting into the habit of using it will be a good step towards replacing all the plastic boards with a nice collection of wooden ones.

And I'm going to use some good old fashioned common sense. I'll continue to wash fruits and vegetables thoroughly before prepping. I'll never use the wooden board near raw meat or eggs. I'll protect the wood with mineral oil, to build up a moisture barrier that will keep out funky things that would eventually damage the board. And I will continue to find ways to get some plastic out of my life.

Yours in the kitchen,

Jazzy