[Curmudgeon10]

We are redoing our kitchen and thinking about a built in cutting board on our island where we do 99% of the food prep. Now is the time to do it as we are just getting around to ordering the marble.

There seem to be a couple of ways of going about this: a) have the stone fabricator put a cutout in the marble, and have the cabinet people build a base on the top of the cabinet for the cutting board to rest on... or b) have the stone fabricator (at more expense, I'm sure) clear out a pocket to hold the board, where he would remove perhaps 5/8" of the stone, but leave 5/8" to provide the base for the board.

Our biggest concern with the built in board is cleaning around the edges, where food and liquids can go. If we use method a) would we just poly the heck out of the wooden base and periodically clean it by taking the cutting board up?

Interested in hearing from someone who has dealt with these issues before...

[dthornton]

Okay, I'm not in construction, I'm in the food industry. From a food safety standpoint, you want to be able to WASH your cutting board after each time you use it. E. coli 0157:H7, salmonella, listeria monocytogenes, and others are nothing to take lightly. They can cause anything from a mild case of diarrhea to death. For this reason, I suggest that you make your counter top solid, and you can have your cabinet maker build you a nice large butcher block cutting board to sit on top, but which you can carry to the sink and wash after use. If you have the marble cut out in the middle, you will only be creating places for food to collect which will be hard to clean. Of course you can do what you wish - it's your kitchen - I just wanted you to be aware of the issues you might have with sanitation and food safety.