Creative Countertops

ET... pizza places don't usually put anything bad on the wooden tables....dough, cheese, tomato sauce etc. They are also made "properly" as in butcher block with glued up pieces without seams to catch bad things as opposed to using flooring or carsiding.

As I stated I will certainly have a wooden cutting board...as in.. I will have a food prep cabinet/hutch that will have a wooden top that can be pulled out and dressed or replaced. But, only at that station. Nothing like wood to do general prepping on.

If you do have a wood top, you just have to be careful about using a different cutting board when doing raw meats and stuff. Not really a hassle. But if someone is partial to not using sanitizers, a good glass or other man made cutting board won't soak up those bugs. and they can still have the wooden tops.

re: Maura's comment....you can pour concrete tops in place and avoid the gravity thing. that also allows you to do cutsey things while it's drying (like sticking your fingers in it and stuff.)

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I'd never use wood for a countertop or for a cutting board. They're too porous to be cleaned of harmful bacteria. Adding a chemical sealer makes it watertight, but I wouldn't want to prepare my food on said surface.

I did see this show yesterday on DIY - here's the webpage of the segment. The only problem with concrete - while beautiful - is making sure you get it adequately sealed so it isn't porous.

DIY Concrete Countertop

SDSTAFF Hawk replies:



For a while, a plastic cutting board was considered superior to wood because the grooves cut into a wooden board by the knife harbored bacteria that would infect the next food that was cut. Plastic cutting boards, it was argued, were harder than wood, developed fewer grooves, and were thus less likely to pass along harmful microbes. The only problem is that studies showed that wood cutting boards harbored fewer bacteria, not the other way around. The most plausible explanations for this are:

1. Plastic is not water-absorbent, so it stays wet longer, which means longer bacterial survival.
2. Wood is water-absorbent, so it dries faster, which means shorter bacterial survival.
3. Wood contains natural antibiotic agents that retard bacterial growth.

Of the foods we commonly eat, chicken has become by far the most dangerous--although the danger isn't that you'll die, but rather that you'll make a lot more rush trips to the bathroom. The thinking is that people will use their cutting boards (wood or plastic) to prepare chicken, wash the board insufficiently, and then prepare the salad. Chicken is always cooked, so any bacterial threat there is eliminated, but salad isn't, meaning there's a risk of food poisoning. Hence two boards, one for chicken, the other for anything else.

The same scenario applies to beef, pork, liver, or other meat. The thinking is that you want a separate board for non-chicken meats since these foods either don't have to be cooked as thoroughly as chicken or cook completely through at lower temperatures. Chicken, considered a walking petri dish of germs, should be cooked at a high enough temperature and long enough to be certain everything is dead (including taste, sometimes, but I digress).

If you only have one cutting board, the current advice is to clean it with a 5% bleach solution (about two tablespoons of bleach to a quart of water), preferably by soaking for several minutes. (I suspect this treatment would be tough on wood cutting boards over time.) Afterward, the board should be wiped with vinegar to remove the bleach. While this advice may be scientifically sound, it adds a lot of prep time to cooking and pretty much turns "dinner" into "midnight snack." The more practical solution is to dedicate a cutting board to chicken/fowl, another to beef/pork/fish/whatever, and yet another to fruits/vegetables.

So, you see, from a microbiological point of view, it doesn't matter much whether you choose wood or plastic, as long as you clean it properly.

Now, another way to read "better" is "easier use." As I mentioned before, plastic is harder than wood, meaning it will dull a knife faster. Glass cutting boards are harder still. On the other hand, you can throw plastic and glass cutting boards in the dishwasher without having to worry about whether they'll warp and crack. Wood is easier on knives but requires regular care in order to last. Two tips that most people ignore:

1. Dry the board immediately after (hand) washing, and
2. Once a month, rub the board with oil, to keep it water-repellent and warp-free (a food-safe oil can be found in the kitchenware department).

Although pretty rare, my personal favorite is natural rubber. Its softness accepts the cut of a knife easily and seals itself afterwards. It's smooth and hefty and doesn't warp or retain odors. The only place I have found them is in the restaurant supply stores in the Chinatowns of New York and Chicago (although you'd probably be successful in Los Angeles and San Francisco). I tried a quick web search but failed to find what I'm talking about, so you're just going to have to imagine what cutting board bliss is like.

http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mcuttingbd.html

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http://tnwoodwright.blogspot.com/

Yep,the Health Dept. goes back and forth on cutting boards.

It all comes down to simply santising cutting board.

As to countertops,while wood is nice I feel I would somehow either set a hot pan or such on it(done it at work to a butcher block prep table we have) or cut something and score the top.

Thanks for all the replies concerning countertops. It is amazing how creative we can become when we need to. I've seen many nice versions of concrete countertops, but how must you prepare for the weight? Will a "normal" frame work for concrete, or must it be reinforced?
As far as using floor tiles, what do you seal them with to make them non-absorbant?
The heat-resistant linoleum would work if only it were still available. How come when something works, it always disappears?
I like the look of wood countertops. If the wood is sealed properly, is the danger still there from germs? I thought that if it were sealed well, that the same type of cleaning you would do with any other type of countertop would be good.
Hmm, all food for thought. I look forward to finishing our home one little step at a time. Since we are doing it with no financing, it is very little baby steps using what we can scrounge up. If anyone has any further ideas or tips, please feel free to share.
hugs,
mamabear

It doing food prep on a wooden table top were truly a problem most every restaurant in the nation would be poisoning their customers.

Wipe it off with a wet rag soaked in a sterilizing agent [a touch of bleach in the water], and the surface is good.

I have seen a concrete countertop and it was really nice. There are many books and websites out concerning this topic these days.

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One of my favorite "cheap" countertops: parquet flooring.

You can usually find oak parquet flooring on sale fairly reasonable, and when laid and banded with oak trim on the edges makes a very pretty countertop. And if y9ou need to refinish, just sand 'er down and start over....

A guy I know built a small cordwood house and used small peices of sandstone set in clear epoxy. The sandstone pieces had beautiful smooth edges from being tossed about in Lake Superior. The sandstone was laid over a sheet of 1/4 inch plywood. He edged the counters with oak left over from another project. It is heat resistant and very durable.

here in quebec they actually banned wood cutting boards some years back, in favor of the plastic boards... of course then they lifted the ban when studies showed it was atually safer.
We use one board for meats and another for veges or cheese... One thing that I have found out is people do not condition their wood board enough, there are cutting board waxes that should be used to keep your wood boards healthy. I have started making my own wax 50/50 beeswax and walnut oil, works great!

I too will go with wood counters when it comes time, wood always wears well too so rather than looking 'old' it tends to look more 'antique'.

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A few more thoughts....

TN....Actually some plastics are absorbent (not to the same extent as wood of course.) Remember those red stains from tomatoes in your tupperware? Nylon is notoriously water absorbant (no matter what the industry might try to tell you.)

Wood only appears to dry faster than plastic. Wood soaks it up. So while the surface may not have water on it the body is still damp. In either case, I would rinse with hot water so that it steams off quickly. And sanitizing works anyway.

The juglans in wood (the natural resistance substance) only last a short while, Walnut being the most bad thing resistant. But, after only a few months the natural resistance goes away.

Once the food is cooked properly, there is no longer any concern.

Definitely don't care for the dulling effects of glass.

Mamabear...some tiles are naturally sealed, some aren't. Saltillo tiles are very porous while vitrified tiles are sealed.

ET most restaurants probably have wood cutting boards, but the majority of tables are stainless steel.

I think it's all a gray area. I think the common thread here is proper care and sanitization of whatever you decide on will work.

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I just got granite slabs on Friday for my countertops at the Habitat Restore in Boone (NC). They've got 1' X just under 3' slabs, 1 1/4 in thick for $25, and have lots of them. It's beige with black & copper-colored (iron) flecks. They were rejected by Appalachian State University due to the iron flecks. That's going to do the largest area, around the sink. I'm going to do a smaller area that won't be near water, in pine flooring I salvaged. Saw a picture of it done in the March '04 issue of Country Home. I think the combination of stone & wood will be pretty.

Okay.

As a teen, and later working through college, I have worked in two pizza parlors and one A&W Rootbeer hamburger stand; all three had wooden food prep counters/tables.

I will look around though; ...

ET..interesting that you would call A&W a hamburger stand. I grew up on A&W hot dogs! mmMMm...$0.25 for a dog...$0.25 for fries...$0.25 for a large rootbeer.....my how times have changed....

Somehow years back I ended up doing alot of maintenance, ended up in restaurants, I saw mostly S.S. .....and a few things that made me NOT go back to THOSE restaurants.

I also did Corian installs in a alot of the hospitals in Indy (if you think Corian is expensive for a kitchen, try paying for 50-60 units at a pop.) They were having to convert over in their newer buildings so they could sanitize better (as opposed to mostly formica). In residential we used to finish the sink cut-outs into cutting boards for the client....(more so I think so the client wouldn't cut on thier new countertops.)

Laurie mmMMm....granite....yum. At 1/4" though I think I would lay it over something for support like an exterior plywood.

gadzooks now I'm going to think more about what tops I'm going to put in. I always like tile, but, maybe I'll try something outside the [litter]box. I have thought about going to the local con.ed. school and taking a pottery class, just so I could make some cutsey tiles instead of store bought. Or making concrete tiles instead of a big honkin' pour.

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Papa burger [two patties]
Teen burger [bacon cheese on one pattie]
Mama burger [cheese burger]
baby burger [one pattie]
hotdogs
fries
onion rings
and we had two chest freezers filled with frosty mugs to serve
A&W ROOTBEER [the best rootbeer on the planet]

Brought to your car by a carhop in a T-shirt and miniskirt, in the summer some of them would even do the rollerskate trick.



We had a set of statues out front with a 'Papa' holding up a Papa burger, a 'Mama', a 'teen' and a 'baby'; each holding up a burger in one hand up over their heads and a frosty mug in their other hand.

Here an idea for durable counter tops:

http://www.labtops.com/

Regarding wood surfaces and sanitation: some studies were done a few years ago, and showed that wooden cutting boards were just as sanitary as plastic one. Cracks or cuts in plastic held bacteria, but for some reason bacteria in cracks in wood died.

Our current countertops (about 4 years or so) are cherry with a really good water based varnish that has held up great so far. There is also a marble section, and just before Christmas a son replaced the marble island top with a larger granite top (he does granite countertop installations). He has done concrete countertops, too, and they work very well if you do them right.

I couldn't afford new laminate let alone granite, marble, or tile so I did the quick and relatively easy way of painting my laminate and it turned out very nice. I doubt if we are looking at durability for the long term but for now it was an easy fix to old ugly laminate.