John Boos & Co.

Spruce up your kitchen cutlery tools with the addition of John Boos & Co. cutting boards and butcher and gathering blocks. John Boos & Co. is one of oldest manufacturers of kitchen equipment in the United States and their line of products include cutting boards, butcher blocks, carts and kitchen workstations. With a long tradition of quality and craftsmanship, experts both in the food industry prefer the brand that have graced kitchens in restaurants, commercial foodservice industry and even in the White House.

While most homeowners take care and are meticulous when choosing their knives and knife sets, they do not pay as much attention when choosing their cutting boards. However, cutting boards are just as important as knives as the boards affect the performance of the knives as well as how long the blades hold on to their edges. Choose high-quality cutting boards, such as those from John Boos & Co., to complement and help maintain the quality and performance of your kitchen knives.

Williams-Sonoma offers two basic types of John Boos & Co. cutting boards and these are edge-grain and end-grain cutting boards. Edge-grain cutting boards have full-length wood rails that make for a flatter but harder surface. On the other hand, end-grain cutting boards feature the end pieces of wood rails as the cutting surface of the board forming a unique checkered pattern. End-grain cutting boards tend to be kinder to knives as the fibres absorb the impact of the blade, thus allowing the knife to hold on to its edge longer. The edge-grain is the right one for your kitchen if you prefer a flatter and more stable cutting surface. Select end-grain cutting boards if you wish for the boards to remain smoother and your knives stay sharper with less edge maintenance and honing.

Apart from its basic type, there are other important considerations when purchasing a cutting board for your kitchen. These include size, weight and practical features that come with the board. Select a larger-sized cutting board that your countertop can accommodate and one or two smaller boards. A large cutting board simply makes slicing and chopping task much easier as it not only gives you added space for the chopped food items as well as for the scraps, which you can discard later giving you more time for prepping all of the ingredients. The smaller boards are for smaller food items when using a large cutting board becomes impractical.

As for the weight of the board, make sure to choose one that is heavy enough to give you stability, but light enough for you to carry, clean up and store. John Boos & Co. cutting boards have a few features that come in handy, and these include reversible chopping surfaces and channels for the carving boards where the juices of food items drain away from the food. Incidentally, the carving boards also make for unique alternative serving boards.

Larger John Boos & Co. kitchen items, such as its line of butcher blocks and kitchen island carts, give you additional space when your countertop becomes a bit crowded. The butcher's block, on the other hand, boasts of a sturdy construction, which lets you chop up tough food items with heavier blades, such as meat cleavers and Nakiri knives.

Although John Boos & Co. uses high-quality yet sustainable hardwoods for their boards, such as maple, cherry and walnut, season them with board oil before using to make them more resistant to microbial cross-contamination. Seasoning the boards also help seal out moisture, which makes the boards less likely to warp or crack yet also help prevent the board from drying out. John Boos & Co. cutting boards, blocks and kitchen carts require little maintenance and only involve hand washing with hot water and mild detergent and drying them thoroughly before storage. This saves you more time for other tasks or for rest.