I think the only advantage would be the TW utensils might have a little more cushion against melting or burning. I like the look of the GIR…
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Yes, rustic is a good description, but I have always liked restaurant supply tools for their simplicity, functionality, and durability as well as their price. Well chosen!
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I need to replace our plastic cutting boards (I know, I know…but being able to dishwash was just so convenient, especially after handling raw meat). I’m looking to spend as little as possible without wrecking my knives. I would like three sizes including a small and XL. Suggestions?
Do I need to be avoiding glue?
ETA: I’m interested in this brand.
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I hear ya on the raw meat, but I just hold my wooden board in the sink at an angle, one end resting on the bottom, squirt a little dish soap on it, wet it with a little hot water, scrub it with a tampico scrub brush, rinse it with a little more hot water, dry it, toss the brush on the top rack of the dishwasher, and put the board away. The knives get the same treatment, minus the dishwasher. I have been doing this after cutting all manner or meats, fish, shellfish, etc. for over a half century with no observable food-related maladies. YMMV
IMO wood is simply unbeatable for cutting boards, but I hear ok things about hard rubber. However, going that route might mean researching the possibility of plastics in the supposedly rubber product. A one piece board of course avoids the glue concern, but I periodically wax my multi piece board and am managing to forget about the glue. Hopefully, the manufacturer, Adams, uses glue responsibly. They sure make lovely boards and have customer service that really impresses me.
Boumbi looks cool. I believe some HO members have and like the hinoki boards.
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I was admiring those!
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It depends how much you want to avoid additives that are in most wood glues. Hide glues contain fewer, sometimes just urea besides the animal tissue.
We live in a world where there is little we can avoid. All we can do is minimize. My grandparents (I am 75) lived well into their nineties without any of those outcomes we dread from ingesting “bad stuff.” So I sort of try to emulate their stuff and their approach to food. Grandmother’s cutting board was glued strips, probably hide glue. I ate a lot of her wonderful cooking. I am willing to assume that risk.
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Same.
I really don’t like heavy wood for many reasons (I already have a couple I don’t use).
Am looking at wood composite like Epicurean, or bamboo.
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I’m old enough to remember wooden boards/blocks that were glued, but also had mechanical fasteners, e.g., through-bolts that cinched things together and made it far less likely the board could gap or come apart.
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I have tried Epicurian and bamboo. They are kind of “clack” forward. It would think they would be ok with most knives, but it might unnerve you to use anything with a very hard and fine, hence brittle, edge. I have a birch board that is not super thick. It seems lighter than similar sized maple boards. It is holding up quite nicely, but I have only had it a year. It replaced a forty year old Boos edge grain that was coming apart. Kaleo suggested the rod and bolt solution, but I lacked the tools and energy.
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They suit our needs.
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IIRC, Chem has a round cut from hinoki, which would make it end-grain.
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This morning before church I walked into a discussion of siloxanes. The concern is spreading, apparently.
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Ordered this set. Rated to 450°.
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The GIR products are great, the core is important to avoid floppiness.
One of my frustrations as a leftie is that many spatulas have slant designed for right handed folks. I recently bought a couple of substitute spatulas that have a straight end and a good core. They are on the large side but seem to be working well, note the first have a wooden component in the handle so they need hand washing. All good products.
for use in my cast iron grill pan I recently had to replace my stainless steel spatula, “lost” following a church kitchen function. This is a great tool, but note, you cant rest it on the side of the pan, the handle is subject to melting in contact with a very hot pan.
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Yeah, well, from this very article:
“There’s no question that Turner has demonstrated that a slew of broadly worrisome chemicals can be present in black plastic goods.”
“Yes, some of the products did have very high levels of brominated chemicals, but that’s not true of the majority of the samples they tested. Similarly, it’s true that these brominated compounds can get into cooking oils.”
“So, we should almost certainly be regulating these products better, and Turner has proven that this area has underacknowledged risks, and we need to act on that to make sure that black plastics are, broadly speaking, safe.”
This author’s primary thesis, in spite of all this, is that there’s not enough BFRs in black plastic cooking utensils (and we can’t tell which ones) and therefore: “[I]t’s not clear that this is a real risk that’s actually happening to people in real life.”
So that lack of clarity amounts to a fuhgettaboutit? Ingested BFRs are unquestionably hazardous to human health.
Do you use a lot of black plastic related stuff in your kitchen?
