What’s the best material for a chopping board, and how to avoid mould?
I saw an influencer advocating for titanium chopping boards.Are they really the way to go? If not, which material is best? My wooden one has some black mould.Lenka, by email“From the off, no!” says Itamar Srulovich, whose latest cookbook, Honey & Co Daily, co-authored by Sarit Packer, is published later this spring.“The technology of chopping boards works, it’s bulletproof – this is criminal!” Sam Clark, co-founder of London’s Moro and Morito, couldn’t agree more: “The idea of chopping on a titanium board, with metal against metal, sends shivers down my spine,” he says.Of course, the surface on which you choose to chop will impact your knife, and for Milli Taylor, who is behind the When in Rome Substack, she “couldn’t imagine anything worse than titanium”.
As Hugh Worsley, founder of knife brand Allday Goods, puts it: “Every time you cut, the very fine edge of your knife, which is microscopically thin, meets the chopping surface.If that surface is too hard, it damages the edge, causing it to dull faster.” A titanium board, which has no give, is just going to slowly destroy your knives: “I can see the benefit of it from a cleanliness point of view,” Worsley concedes, but, other than that, “it just makes no sense”.For this bunch of cooks, besides an honourable mention or two for Japanese compressed rubber boards, wood comes out tops.“Their natural density absorbs the impact of the blade, making them kinder to your knives,” Clark says, plus their “natural grip keeps ingredients steady, reducing the risk of slipping”.
Worsley punts for end-grain hardwood such as maple, walnut or oak; Srulovich favours the latter for day-to-day tasks, but uses a bamboo number for fish and meat,“It’s cost-effective and heavy enough that I don’t need to put a cloth under it, so it doesn’t move, but not so heavy that I dislocate my shoulder when I lift it,”The other thing about wood, Clark adds, is that it has “remarkable antibacterial qualities; it can naturally prevent harmful bacteria from multiplying, because the wood absorbs the moisture they need to survive”,That’s not to say you don’t need to care for it, mind,“Don’t stick it in the dishwasher and don’t soak it in water,” says woodworker Ellie Smalls, of tableware outfit Selwyn House.
“Instead, just wipe it clean and dry straight away.You can also clean it really well by scrubbing coarse sea salt and half a lemon over the surface.But really scrub it.” Alternatively, for stubborn stains (hello, turmeric), Taylor uses fine salt, bicarb and vinegar: “It really froths up when you wash it.”Over time, you’ll want to oil your wooden board(s), too: “Every three to four months to begin with, then eventually every six,” Smalls advises, to seal the surface and help repel water.
As for Lenka’s black marks, the good news is that they’re unlikely to be mould.A more likely culprit, Taylor suspects, is a hot pan on a wet board, though Smalls says “it sounds as if the tannins are reacting”.Either way, all that needs is a little sanding and a fresh coat of oil, and you’ll be back in business.Got a culinary dilemma? Email feast@theguardian.com
Mr Motivator urges government to treat ’bed poverty’ as a national crisis
Mr Motivator is lobbying the government to tackle the number of children in the UK who have no bed of their own as Barnardo’s reveals demand for furniture from struggling families has surged by 40% in the last year.The children’s charity said beds had become“like a luxury item” as the war in Iran threatens to exacerbate cost of living pressures.Meanwhile, TV and online fitness coach Mr Motivator, real name Derrick Evans, who lives in Greater Manchester, is urging government to treat “bed poverty” as a national crisis and include it in child poverty planning.The former GMTV star said: “I have always hated the fact that it’s merged into poverty in general, which means it gets lost.“Beds can end up at the bottom of the list for families in a desperate position, and the consequences are enormous
Property company denies trying to mass-evict tenants before England’s no-fault evictions ban
A property company accused of trying to mass-evict tenants in the weeks before no-fault evictions are banned has denied doing so, saying it is simply implementing “routine and lawful tenancy management”.A statement from Criterion Capital, set up by the billionaire property magnate Asif Aziz, was issued in response to Matthew Pennycook, the housing minister, who wrote to the company to seek “urgent” answers about its plans.Criterion has reportedly sent section 21 notices, which give notice of proposed eviction, to large numbers of its tenants. At prime minister’s questions this month, the Labour MP Siobhain McDonagh said she knew of at least 130 such notices issued by Criterion at just one development, Britannia Point, in her south London constituency of Mitcham and Morden.In a letter to the directors of Criterion, seen by the Guardian, Pennycook said that if the company was seeking to remove tenants before the Renters’ Rights Act comes into force on 1 May, banning so-called no-fault evictions in England, it would be the actions of a “thoroughly unscrupulous landlord”
No new meningitis cases linked to Kent outbreak found, health agency says
No new cases of meningitis linked to the outbreak in Kent have been detected, raising hopes that it has been well contained and has not led to people elsewhere catching the disease.The number of people affected remains at 29, of which 20 are are confirmed and nine probable cases in what health officials say is an “explosive” outbreak – the biggest to occur in the UK in a generation.Two of the 20 people confirmed with the disease have died: Juliette Kenny, 18, a secondary school student, and an unnamed University of Kent student. The other 18 are thought still to be in hospital.Nineteen of the 20 confirmed cases were of meningitis B
‘Not just a Jewish service’: Hatzola ambulances serve whole community, say volunteers
‘Accountants, plumbers, surveyors – whatever it might be, they’ve all got day jobs. Everyone has got kits in their car, everyone responds from wherever they are,” said Yossi Richman, on life as a trained volunteer paramedic at Hatzola, the ambulance service funded by Jewish giving.Richman also serves as a governance lead at Hatzola in Golders Green, north London, where four ambulances were attacked by arsonists in the early hours of Monday morning.The attack has left Jewish communities reeling. But alongside the concerns about community safety amid rising antisemitism, there’s a determination to protect the humanitarian civic principles Hatzola represents
There must be more support for young people who are seeking jobs | Letters
Regarding Polly Toynbee’s article (Young people want to work: now there may be jobs for them, 17 March), as a young person, I believe that the government must rebuild trust in its support, or young people will continue to be held back. I am now working, but I know what it’s like to leave university and face unemployment: constant rejection, confusion and anxiety about what comes next. It is scary. But what Polly describes isn’t unusual; it’s the reality for many, and repeated rejections knock your confidence.Support on offer has struggled to keep up with the growing challenges that young people face
Those who view voyeuristic nightlife videos are the issue | Letters
I was grateful for Emily Retter’s focus on the feelings and experiences of the women affected by voyeuristic nightlife content (‘They were comparing me to Bonnie Blue’: the disturbing rise of nightlife content, 18 March). Being “watched” in public is perhaps a uniquely female experience. Sadly many women can relate to being leered at from car windows or catcalled from scaffolding, with video content being the latest, depressing escalation of this kind of behaviour.What is new, however, is the scale of the audience for the content documenting such behaviour. I am struck by the lack of repercussions for the (presumably exclusively male) viewers and commenters of these videos
What does loneliness smell like? Inside the strangely soothing world of fragrance TikTok
Claire Hooper: ‘People have different forms of therapy. Songs for the Deaf by Queens of the Stone Age is mine’
‘The dream is to be a standup, but everyone who knows me says: Please don’t’ – Riz Ahmed on chaos, comedy, and defying categorisation
‘A fascinating discovery’: research challenges Battle of Hastings narrative
Driven to the right side of the road? | Brief letters
Jimmy Kimmel on Trump Pearl Harbor joke: ‘Everything he knows about it begins and ends with the Ben Affleck movie’