Fish is delicious. The smell it leaves behind on a wooden cutting board is not. You scrubbed it with dish soap, rinsed it twice, left it to dry overnight, and somehow it still reeks of last night’s salmon. Sound familiar? The reason fish smell is so persistent on wood comes down to chemistry. The compounds…
It is a fair question. You just used your wooden spoon to stir raw chicken, your cutting board touched fish, or you pulled a utensil out of a drawer that has been sitting unused for months. The oven is right there. Can you just pop the wooden spoon in and call it sterile? The short…
Coconut oil is one of those ingredients that seems like it should be good for everything. It is food-safe, natural, smells pleasant, and you probably have a jar of it sitting in your pantry right now. So when your wooden cutting board looks dry and dull, reaching for the coconut oil makes sense. Kind of….
If you have ever shown a photograph of an American neighborhood to someone from Germany, Japan, or Brazil, the first question is almost always the same: “Why are all the houses made of wood?” It is a reasonable question. Wood burns. Wood rots. Wood lets in drafts. And yet over 90 percent of homes built…
Wooden cutting boards are essential tools for a chef’s daily work in the kitchen. They make life easier and enable a proper flow through the cooking process. Over time, the chef grows accustomed to the cutting board, and it becomes more than a tool, almost like a trusted companion. For that relationship to last, the…
You found a beautiful slab at the lumber yard. Grain like a fingerprint. Color you can’t stop staring at. You bring it home, build something gorgeous, and three weeks later it’s warped like a banana. Sound familiar? The culprit is almost always moisture. Wood that is not properly dried will move, split, cup, and crack…
Last week, I went out with a group of friends to a special restaurant. It was a different experience compared to the usual ones I have had in the past. We had jollof rice and stewed escargot (another fancy name for stewed snails), which was fascinating beyond my imagination. It was a chef’s kiss. What…
Steel wool is known as the tool for heavy-duty cleaning, and every house should have one. It’s often used to scrub baked-on grease off oven grates, or to polish rusty garden tools. Its abrasive nature makes it the perfect tool for stubborn messes on many surfaces. Can you use steel wool on wooden kitchen utensils?…
We have all seen that one drawer that looks tidy on the outside but barely functions inside. I have one like that. Instead of helping you cook, it becomes a liability that swallows space and mocks every chef who opens it. The best silverware drawer organizer changes that. It arranges your utensils in clean sets…
If you are staring at an old wooden bedroom set and asking yourself, can I paint my wooden bedroom set, and if it’s worth the effort to paint, I have a story for you. Last week, I helped my son move into his first place, the same home where his grandmother once lived. As a…
Cutting boards are an essential tool in the kitchen, as they help maintain a cordial relationship between functionality and the role they play in the kitchen. Cleaning and maintaining a maple wood cutting board entails sanitizing the wood and protecting it from moisture to prevent warping and cracking. How to Care for a Maple Wood…
Wooden end tables are tables that stay beside your sofa, armchair, or bed. They are very essential in the furniture setting of the home, as they provide an extended usage of a centre table, especially in the sitting room area. With how essential they are in the home, it’s of topmost essence that they are properly…
