I received an email from Margaret, one of our Red Apron members after last week's email on the Top Gourmet Chopping boards. She was telling me that she uses a glass "chopping board", thinks its wonderful and wouldnt part with it for all the tea in china.

 

Oh dear ... now this was a golden opportunity for a good salesman to ask her if her knives got blunt very quickly as this is just what will happen to your knives if you chop on a glass "worktop saver" (which is really what they are!!) ... more of this in a bit.

 

But I'm not much of a salesman and sometimes I really get the cart before the horse. In this case I assumed that her knives were already blunt (silly mistake). I suggested that she looked at the Top Gourmet Boards again, as they wouldnt blunt her knives and had all the other wonderful benefits that I mentioned last week; light, dishwasher safe, wont warp etc etc.

 

When Babette kindly pointed out that I'd not asked if her knives were blunt in the first place, I felt like a prize twit and emailed Margaret back to apologise.

 

Not withstanding my crassness, the one thing I'd like you to take from this experience is "Dont cut anything up on a glass 'worktop Saver' or 'Chopping board' and some unscrupulous manufacturers do call them chopping boards ... call it what you like, they are designed to save your worktop from harm, but they have not been designed to be good to your knives. The only safe materials for your knives are, either wood, polyethelene, or of course Top Gourmet Wood boards, which as no doubt you've gathered are my favourites! All other surfaces, depending on how hard they are, will blunt your knives sooner rather than later.

Please note. If you are using a serated knife the same applies, but it will take much longer to get blunt ... problem then is re-sharpening: a serated blade is difficult at best and very often impossible to sharpen.