In our work, we build, buy, and install a lot of counters. Right now, we use a lot of commercial butcher block, and also make a lot of wood counters. Our friends Pat Garrett and Shane Thurston make a lot of slate and soapstone counters for us. Occasionally we get into granite tops. Recently we've been using a green MDF product called Valchromat, which is easy to work, and has some of the virtues of stone counters. We still do a little Formica since it is such an inexpensive option, and let's face it, works pretty well.
Recently
some of our customers have gotten in touch with us because their counters
didn't stay new-looking. One was a slate counter, with under-mount sink, that
got a little spotty under the drain board. The other was oiled butcher block
that got drab -looking over time, after several years of food prep. That's fine
– we'll do our best to fix these problems.
This
got me thinking about my own counters. I think, between the apartments I've
rented, the houses we've owned or co-owned, my little boat, and my
late-lamented trailer, I've build myself about 20 or 25 counters. A couple of
early ones were plywood, coated with fiberglass. Several others were plywood
that was heavily varnished with oil-based varnish. These were intended as
temporary counters, but at least three are still in use decades later. But most
of them were wooden planks, glued edge to edge. Usually they were made out of
whatever wood came to hand. Walnut, ash, red oak, white oak (that's nice!), mahogany,
teak, sometime pine. Most of these oiled counters are still in service, except
for the ones in that late lamented trailer.
I
always thought of these kitchens as workplaces, analogous more to a woodshop or
restaurant kitchen than to some kind of showplace. The wood counters were oiled
with ordinary salad oil, sometimes mineral oil or tung oil. We chopped veggies
of all kinds right on the counter. We rolled out the dough right on the
counter. Except for meat, and particularly poultry, most foods we ate were in
direct contact with these counters. We learned to take one precaution: don't
let that carbon steel knife sit in a puddle or orange juice for too long, or
you'll have a nice black chevron that will have to be scraped out.
Here
is my current batch. This is the before picture.
The
island is made from some ash planks. The green ones are Fireslate II, a
concrete counter similar to your counters in chem lab. To the left is a
commercial Boos butcher block. In the distance is a varnished pine table I made
about 40 years ago.
In
the great tradition of kitchen photography, I took this occasion to do the
annual maintenance which I do every three or four years. I scrubbed the
counters, dried them off, and gave them another dose of salad oil, including
the Fireslate II.
If
I saw stains or other defects at this point, I could have sanded or scraped
them out. But as you can see, I did not do that.
Right
from the first day, these counters have taken a terrific beating. It would be
impossible to count the scratches in this wood. After all, just cutting up
three cloves of garlic might lead to fifty unkind cuts. These fifteen or twenty
year old counters have been hacked thousands of times. They have also been
stained and re-stained over and over by beets, strawberries, coffee and lots of
other foods. They have been used and abused.
The
hardwood tops can take this pretty well; they can always be brought back to
reasonable condition, ad infinitum. The Fireslate, like some natural stones,
can get stains. Because of how much water they get, the oil finish gets drawn
out pretty fast. That poor soft pine table in the background has really
suffered. It's got scratches, divots, places where ball point pens have sort of
printed through onto the soft wood.
I
love these counters. These are nice, honest materials. You could find counters
made a century or five centuries ago that were made much the same way. They'll
last pretty much forever, and if they fail, they can be repaired.
They
tell a story. People have been living here! They cook for each other. They eat
a lot of vegetables! They chop up their garlic instead of buying it powdered.
Why, they don't even take good care of that nice pine table! I see these
honorably damaged surfaces, and remember the meals, the singing parties, the
pizzas, the bread dough. The bread I'm slicing now, is somehow linked to all
the meals that came before, all the people I've spent time with here. To be
sentimental, the worn surface has some meaning for me; I hope I get to see it
even more battered, to see the surface even more uneven than today.
When
I revisit some of their older cousins (now owned by other people) I see they
are still being put to work on a daily basis. You have no idea what a good
feeling that is for a carpenter, to see something you've made going strong
years later.
As
we work with families developing their kitchen designs, we talk about what
functions they want each counter to serve. We talk about what material fits
with the work done at that work station. We take them to see kitchens we did a
few years ago. If we're using slate, I'd like them to see what it's going to
look like in a few years.
If
they want a counter that will stay new-looking a long time, maybe we'll end up
with those granite tops, or engineered quartz, or even on occasion, “solid
surface.” If they choose maple or ash or soapstone or slate, I'll be glad. But
I'll also be careful to say (once burned, twice shy), “These are patina
materials. They'll last a long time, but they'll show their history, too.”
