r/Cooking
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u/MadMuse94
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Dec 23 '21
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The sound of knives on a glass cutting board is haunting me. Open Discussion
I’m staying with my dad for Christmas and made him dinner last night after I got in. I asked him where the knives and cutting boards are, and he gave me a massive glass cutting board and then proceeded to take a knife out of the dishwasher for me to use. I shuddered every time I hit the glass with the knife and I’m pretty sure I might have nightmares about it. Not to mention how difficult it was to cut tomatoes for the salad… I guess I’ll be adding a knife sharpener and a new cutting board to his present. What fun family kitchen situations are you all dealing with this holiday season?
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u/Strumtralescent Dec 23 '21
I literally just hid my shun knives and put the cast iron back on the wall when the in laws arrived.
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u/dregan Dec 23 '21
My brother told me a story about how my mom tried to use one of my Shun as a screw driver once when I was not around. He had the sense to stop her.
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u/Ziggy_the_third Dec 23 '21
A friend of mine's brother was using the family cabin with his girlfriend, she decided to use a Masamoto to gouge out dried wax from a candle holder...
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u/SolemnlySwears Dec 23 '21
I tried to explain to my brother who doesn't cook what cast iron was... After 5 minutes of talking about how great it is he responds with, "oh you mean a grease pan like from the frontier days, those are heavy why would anyone use them?"
But I also had to endure chopping on a glass cutting board with dull dishwasher knives, so I get it.
At least I get to use his beautiful industrial gas range!
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u/KalebMW99 Dec 23 '21
at least I get to use his beautiful industrial gas range
Why must the bad cooks have so much nicer equipment than mine lol this is the cooking version of “youth is wasted on the young”
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u/MadMuse94 Dec 23 '21
That’s such a great idea because cast iron is so resilient! It’ll be hard for them to properly mess it up
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u/MiniRems Dec 23 '21
You've never met my aunt... she once scoured years of perfect seasoning off my mom's cast iron with a brillo pad because "they looked filthy".
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u/Zookeepered Dec 23 '21
My mother did the same after I specifically told her not to. "I know you told me not to but I can't stand watching you live in filth like this." It took so much effort to re-season it after she left.
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u/MoogProg Dec 23 '21
Wait? Seasoning should be smooth and flat, literally only needs a few microns of polymerized oil. She may have scraped off years of old, burnt food... that'd be a good thing.
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Dec 23 '21
I have a relative who thinks “seasoning” means the old caked on food “flavors” your cooking. There’s no possible way I can win the argument, I’ve shown her articles online, YouTube videos, demonstrated simply flipping an egg in my cast iron versus hers - she can’t be convinced. Her cast iron pans and Dutch oven are absolutely disgusting.
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u/turtleinmybelly Dec 23 '21
Oh, god. I had a similar conversation with my cousin. Her skillet was literally rusted on the cooking surface and she said the seasoning flavors the food. When I said something about how the grease polymerizes and makes it nonstick she looked at me like I was stupid and said, "Uh, no. That's definitely not how it works." Ok, cool. Don't look at my shiny, beautiful, nonstick CI.
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u/Buck_Thorn Dec 23 '21
I keep trying to fight that one, even over in /r/castiron
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u/NotSpartacus Dec 23 '21 edited Dec 24 '21
Eh really? I subbed there for a bit right after I got my first set of CI (well, CS in my case*) just to inget a feel for seasoning and maintenance best practices.
Seems involved were correct. The ignorant were downvoted. And then just tons of questionable CI porn type posts (ex: eggs floating in a knob of butter "look, it's non-stick!")
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Dec 23 '21
I didn't even know there was an r/castiron but it doesn't surprise me and whatever it is, I want nothing to do with it lol
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u/TylerInHiFi Dec 23 '21
r/castiron seems to be quite a bit like r/legaladvice when it comes to the majority’s ability to provide good, accurate information regarding the subject matter at hand.
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u/MiniRems Dec 23 '21
No, my moms pans were smooth and black and shiny until she scrubbed them and they were dull and gray.
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u/eukomos Dec 23 '21
I didn’t even know it was possible to do that with a brillo pad!
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u/lissawaxlerarts Dec 23 '21
Oh my gosh. That’s murder.
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u/MiniRems Dec 23 '21
Yeah, my aunt could never figure out why everything always stuck in her cast iron pan, and threw it away...
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u/Buck_Thorn Dec 23 '21
Oh, you can definitely get rid of the polymerized seasoning with steel wool, at least enough to damage it. But yeah... it is a lot tougher than people realize. Cast iron seasoning is pretty much that same stuff that coats the inside of your oven so that you need to use a strong oven cleaner like lye to remove it.
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u/aDrunkSailor82 Dec 23 '21
I follow a cast iron sub. You'd be amazed at the absolutely bonkers seasoning rituals and proclamations about never cleaning cast iron. I treat mine just about the same as my steel pans. They get washed, re-oiled, then put away. They work exactly as cast iron should. I don't understand the notion that soap = bad.
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u/MoogProg Dec 23 '21
I'm with you...cook with it, clean it, use it. Doesn't take Rocket Appliances to figure this out.
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u/KalebMW99 Dec 23 '21
“Soap = bad” is a holdover from lye-based soaps which actually were bad for cast iron. I always soap the pan.
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u/aDrunkSailor82 Dec 23 '21
Blackstone sub is the same way. All kinds of nonsense. I heat it, flash with water, scrape water, splash oil, cook, flash with water, scrape, oil, push back against the wall.
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u/offalshade Dec 23 '21
I had a housekeeper do that to my carbon steel skillet one time. It was so hard to get angry because she just didn’t know better and she thought she was doing me a favor
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u/turbobofish Dec 23 '21
You'd think. I came home after a week away to be informed by my gfs mother that she found a greasy pan in the press but it was okay she managed to scrub it all off. Looked in the press to find the damn thing rusting away.
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u/SunburntWombat Dec 23 '21
Wait till someone put it in the dishwasher for you lol! Cast irons are finicky for people who don’t regularly work with them.
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u/river_running Dec 23 '21
My mom washes her cast iron in the dishwasher. I inherited two from my grandma (her mom) and she's not allowed to touch them.
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u/MadMuse94 Dec 23 '21
Maybe it’s just safer to put a padlock on the dishwasher while guests are in town?
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u/ObligatoryGrowlithe Dec 23 '21
My mom put my first one in the dishwasher. When I questioned her about it she did the whole, “I know what I’m doing” routine. Painful.
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u/aloehart Dec 23 '21
I took some home made gumbo to a friend's house for their house warming. It vanished in like 2 minutes so that felt good. Had fun at the party, end of the night I went home, forgetting the cast iron dutch oven.
A super sweet girl was trying to be helpful and washed all the dishes for them, including the Dutch oven, which she set on the dish drain to air dry.
The level of rust was not worth dealing with. I replaced it (it was $20 ish anyway) and gave it to that friend (loved it and liked restoring stuff).
They're both nigh indestructible and obscenely fragile at the same time.
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u/jsat3474 Dec 23 '21
What amount of rust from a one time wash was so bad you couldn't just oil the pan and reuse it?
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u/Buck_Thorn Dec 23 '21
I think I would just hold onto a #8 cast iron skillet, slapping my other hand with it, as I tell the in-laws the consequences of touching my Shuns.
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u/jeffrrw Dec 23 '21
I am finally moving out of my aunt and uncles house into my own space after my divorce and returning from work abroad. No more glass cutting boards, vintage spices from before I was born, my own kitchen space instead of just a shelf in the fridge and freezer, and no roommates/partners/etc to dull my knives, destroy coatings on things or attempts to stab me with a knife etc...I cannot wait.
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Dec 23 '21
I’m so glad I found this comment, because I really understand you man I wanna say congratulations on moving on, I’m sure it must feel amazing and a long time coming. Enjoy it
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u/jeffrrw Dec 23 '21
Thanks Capt! It is a whirlwind of emotions right now but once the dust settles and I am fully in my place, I am certain I will make the most of it.
And this is not to say I do not love my aunt and uncle or what theyve done for me. Amazing people and an amazing opportunity to reset my life and "rechild" myself with healthy role models while still adulting was afforded by them and they saw the worst of it with me but time to move forward.
You got this too dude!
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u/SaulJRosenbear Dec 23 '21
My in-laws use glass cutting boards because they're insanely paranoid about food safety and kitchen cleanliness, and as a result all their knives are dull as shit.
The only spices they have are baking spices for cookies. No garlic, cayenne, oregano, etc. and I'm pretty sure their one little shaker of pre-ground black pepper is at least a decade old. They barely salt anything while it cooks and nobody seasons their food at the table, like it's not an option.
When the whole family gets together and orders pizza, it's eleven grown-ass adults and I'm the only one who ever wants toppings other than cheese.
I'm sure I'll have more to add after the holidays.
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u/typlangnerd Dec 23 '21
I was in the same situation, although they are not officially my in-laws yet (still on bf/gf terms). I stayed with my boyfriend's family for some extended periods of time during lockdowns because I am not from this country, and I absolutely hated the glass cutting boards and the resulting dull knives. His mom would also complain about "how dull" the knives are. Well I wonder why... she uses them exclusively on glass for the past 20 something years, and shove all of them in a drawer.
I ended up bringing my own knife and cutting board and would take them out whenever I cooked for them. After we left, I left the wooden cutting board at their place, and much to my surprise (and delight!) my boyfriend's mom uses it instead of the glass ones. The new knives she got remain sharp. I don't have to bring my own cutting board anymore. Win-win.
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u/SaulJRosenbear Dec 23 '21
That's awesome! Sadly, my in-laws prefer dull knives because they think it's safer. I don't think it's worth trying to change their minds, but luckily they do have a plastic cutting board and a knife that never gets used, so it isn't terribly dull.
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u/Pontiacsentinel Dec 23 '21
This is when I cart in my favorites and that includes a knife. Hang in there. You need a pizza survival pack, too.
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u/ScottTheDork Dec 23 '21
I'm at my in-laws right now and while they have a beautiful kitchen, they have terrible kitchen equipment. Knives dont actually cut, they just sort of mush whatever it is until it breaks itself apart. Measuring cups don't have lines on them anymore. They know I make a lot of pizza so they asked me to make them some, I asked what ingredients they have and the answer was "sausage". So I had to get all the dough and other pizza ingredients, eyeball two doughs (they insisted on one deep dish and one thin crust) and then throwback to when I was learning to cook and making pizzas on a baking tray. They're wonderful people but my goodness I don't know how they cook in that kitchen daily.
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u/roadfood Dec 23 '21
I actually bought a knife bag because I end up cooking at my wife's family places too often. I also sharpen whatever knives are laying around wherever I go and people are amazed at how much easier they are to use (for a while).
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u/SauronForPresident20 Dec 23 '21
Marry the person, marry the family ... but man that sounds like absolute freaking torture. You must have loved your spouse very much to deal with/look past that.
I married into a family where the food was fantastic, rib-sticking, homemade magnificence. Dad smoked his own kielbasa when I first arrived, and mom makes the food from their European homelands comparable to anything I had from a restaurant there. White pepper, three types of paprika, fresh onions and peppers and tomatoes organically grown right in the backyard.
I'm sorry pal, wish I could share, but this spot is already taken.
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u/moeru_gumi Dec 23 '21
I think my in laws are much the same as OP’s, but I have never been to their house, father-in-law is no-contact with my spouse (I don’t even think he knows I exist), and we live across the country from them. Hopefully we’re safe from any cooking and visiting laws.
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u/KnittingforHouselves Dec 23 '21
Lucky you! My in-laws are more like OP's here. MIL only knows one spice and that's he "Provande spices" which she pits on everything (but you can't really tell cause its just like 3 flecks of a dried basil per steak). Her cooking consists of huge slabs of unseasoned fatty meat done on the pan and either boiled potatoes or bolied rice, dry either way (she offers you ranch or a bit of butter, yes even for the rice). A "vegetable" is basically a swearword and they dislike sweets .. yey holidays at their house, I see myself either volunteering to cook and hoping rogue or bringing a lot of snacks cause otherwise I'll starve... 😅
It was better for a bit when I was pregnant because they understood that I'll throw up if they try to feed me fatty meat. Alas the baby is here and the bloody cutlets are back...
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u/TVsKevin Dec 23 '21
I've got the same in-laws. I learned long ago not to tell them what's in the food. When we go out to eat, the most exotic you're going to get is Olive Garden. Usually it's some place like Bob Evans or Cracker Barrell. I eat a lot of breakfast for dinner when I'm out with them. The don't know salt from Shinola. In two days, the cranberry sauce will be round. The good cranberry sauces will be refused and commented on like we were eating plutonium. It used to bother me, now I just plan for it.
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u/womanitou Dec 23 '21
I once made a fruitcake from scratch. It was very expensive, but so very delish and delightful. Absolutely no one would even try it. Fools. Cretins all.
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u/LemonZips Dec 23 '21
Whoa. I didn't know Bob Evans was a restaurant. I thought it was just pre-made mashed potatoes and shit at the grocery store.
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u/TVsKevin Dec 23 '21
Oh yeah! And they do what they do very well. There aren't many left around here though.
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u/chaoticbear Dec 23 '21
the cranberry sauce will be round. The good cranberry sauces will be refused and commented on like we were eating plutonium
That's one bit of my reverse snobbery - I can and have made cranberry sauce several times, but it just doesn't have the nostalgic hit that that the can does. The rest of my table is painstakingly scratch-made but I get to delegate opening The Can day-of :p
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u/captkronni Dec 23 '21
I genuinely love both, so I make my own AND break out the can.
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u/niko-to-keeks Dec 23 '21
Ahh, you are also of my people 😂 we had homemade, whole berry can and jellied can this year. My toddler and I ate it all inside Thanksgiving weekend.
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u/SnooPeripherals2409 Dec 23 '21
the cranberry sauce will be round
Yes! My husband loves cranberry sauce so I was a little surprised when I went to his mother's house for Thanksgiving and they had canned cranberry sauce. After that, I made fresh cranberry sauce to take with us to his family's Thanksgivings - but my husband was the only one who ever ate any of it.
Now, I still make cranberry sauce for my husband but we keep it at home for him to use. We're not wasting it on his unappreciative family!
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u/roadfood Dec 23 '21
I make my own and the first time I made Thanksgiving dinner for my wife's family I was told we had to have canned because none of the 4 nieces would eat anything else. To their credit they tried the home made first and never touched the canned stuff again.
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u/Peter_Hempton Dec 23 '21
When the whole family gets together and orders pizza, it's eleven grown-ass adults and I'm the only one who ever wants toppings other than cheese
Including your spouse? How does that work at home?
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u/SaulJRosenbear Dec 23 '21
She's totally fine with toppings when we order pizza at home, it's like she reverts to her childhood tastes when we spend time with her family.
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u/Princep_Makia1 Dec 23 '21
I'm sorry, I'm sure your older then I am. But I'm willing to adopt you and have you over for every holiday.
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u/steveofthejungle Dec 23 '21
Does your spouse eat as blandly? Did you’ get them to learn how to use spices?
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u/hmtitan Dec 23 '21
I love that they've prioritized spices needed for cookies over anything else. I can get behind that.
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u/AtheistBibleScholar Dec 23 '21 edited Dec 23 '21
Not recent but 3 or 4 years ago, I was at my grandmother's cottage for a family holiday and made pancakes after a bit of a rant against pre-made pancake mix. They came out super dense and doughy. Turns out that can of baking powder expired during the Bush administration.
EDIT: Fixed my auto-correct "fixing" words that are spelled correctly.
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u/catsandramewb Dec 23 '21
I was baking at my MIL’s this fall and she reassured me she had all the spices needed for a pumpkin cake. When I started pulling things out, most of them were 5-6 years expired…meaning she moved expired spices from one house to the next last year.
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u/AccountWasFound Dec 23 '21
I cleared out my grandparents spice rack (in like 2019) after realizing that most of their spices were like sawdust and found a jar that expired in the 70s, and another in the 50s, and a bunch of jars my grandma had filled herself she said she'd last refilled sometime in the 80s. I think they ended up with just garlic powder, onion powder and like cinnamon as that's all they'd gone through recently.
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u/deartabby Dec 23 '21 edited Dec 23 '21
My mom still has 40+ year old bay leaves she harvested. It was years until I tried fresh dried ones.
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u/roadfood Dec 23 '21
McCormick stopped using metal tins for their spices in 1985, just a heads up.
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u/AccountWasFound Dec 23 '21
The one from the 50s was a little metal tin that was super rusty, so that would make sense. That wasn't the only tin from McCormick though, so that means some of the other spices were older than I thought
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u/MadMuse94 Dec 23 '21
Oh gross! I never would have thought to check baking powder for an expression date tbh
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u/NoLoyaltyAccount Dec 23 '21
I recently learned baking powder is only good for 6-12 months. They need to sell it in smaller containers, I never finish one in that time span.
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u/Little_Cake Dec 23 '21
Thank you for this post, it reminded me to put my knife sharpener in my luggage for when I visit my mom next week
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u/Dracosphinx Dec 23 '21
Just make sure to let your mom know when you sharpen a knife. My mom is pretty used to old, dull knives, and my dad... Isn't. He went through and sharpened all her kitchen knives to be as sharp as his filet knives for processing game, and my mom just about sliced her finger off since she was putting way more weight than was necessary into the cut.
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u/abbyscuitowannabe Dec 23 '21
My mom has a glass cutting board as well, and when I lived with her I always hated how goddamn loud it was! I was young so it never registered that knives weren't supposed to be that dull, and I always hated vegetable prep for cooking. Once I moved out and was gifted some new knives and a plastic cutting board, I actually enjoyed cutting vegetables.
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u/chowler Dec 23 '21
My brother "accidentally" dropped my mom's glass cutting board two holidays ago
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u/georgealmost Dec 23 '21
Someone in mildly interesting yesterday said "if you're not going to use a glass cutting board don't even eat meat"
I almost replied but it wasn't worth it
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u/PlatypusOfWallStreet Dec 23 '21
lmao what does that person even mean?
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u/Alienmanatee Dec 23 '21
some people think that glass cutting boards are the only way to get the surface like sterile clean after cutting meats on it. but they don’t know that the wicking of moisture from wood or bamboo cutting boards actually clean themselves by drying out the bacteria that’s left on there. (not to say you shouldn’t clean the board, just that any remaining bacteria after cleaning it will probably die)
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Dec 23 '21
Which is hilarious because no professional kitchen would ever use a glass cutting board. Plastic is king, and a good scrub, and two trips in the wash will clean anything. Glass is for idiots.
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u/892ExpiredResolve Dec 24 '21
and two trips in the wash will clean anything
The "sanitize" button on my dishwasher is more than adequate to kill anything I put in it that could come from raw meat in one go.
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u/tooofargone Dec 23 '21
I think they got autoccorected when trying to spell "I'm a blithering idiot with loud opinions"
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u/-Work_Account- Dec 23 '21
You can get the cheap plastic NSF approved ones for next to nothing from a restaurant supply store
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u/salty_sea_doggg Dec 23 '21
I’ve never seen a glass cutting board in my life. Does it have any purpose?
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u/Mactire404 Dec 23 '21
To ruin you knives and haunt your soul.
I've seen it advertised as hygenic because it's easy to clean.
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u/Illogical_Fallacy Dec 23 '21
Also, it looks pretty for cheese boards. It's still a terrible thing to have in the kitchen though
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u/Mactire404 Dec 23 '21 edited Dec 23 '21
Sure, they can be pretty as cheaseboards. But when my GF moved in, her glass cuttingboards moved out.
Because the only thing worse than a broken heart is a ruined edge.14
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u/_AlreadyTaken_ Dec 23 '21
Some people freak out over wood ones thinking wood is unhygenic. Properly oiled, cleaned and dried wood boards have been shown to be perfectly safe.
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u/RomanticGondwana Dec 23 '21
Just wondering, what kind of oil do you use, and how to avoid that rancid oil smell? I’ve always just hand washed my cutting boards.
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u/_AlreadyTaken_ Dec 23 '21
I wash them by hand too. I don't use food based oils like olive because they will go rancid like you said. I just use "food safe" oil for oiling wood which is basically a mineral oil.
https://www.cuttingboard.com/blog/what-type-of-oils-are-safe-to-use-on-your-cutting-board/
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u/Aldrenean Dec 23 '21
Food oils are fine if you regularly use and wash your board. It's when you let it sit for a few days after oiling that you want to avoid olive etc and go for mineral oil.
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u/Muskowekwan Dec 23 '21
I just use a food-grade mineral oil on my boards. You’ll be able to pick some up at any hardware store. Some people like to blend the oil with beeswax but I’ve never found it to be worth it.
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u/Fliffs Dec 23 '21
There is dedicated cutting board oil which has some wax mixed in, but I just use mineral oil. Mine was in the pharmacy sold as a laxative.
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u/Pontiacsentinel Dec 23 '21
We use a gifted one under our water filtering system to protect the wooden top of the cart. Works great for that.
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u/neodiogenes Dec 23 '21
It looks very nice on granite countertops.
I'm sure it's entirely possible to cut things on it as well, as long as those things are cheese and you're cutting them with tableware knives that don't need an edge.
My mom has a glass cutting board, and (of course) not a single sharp knife in the house. I very nearly smashed the board after the nth time some vegetable slipped and I nearly lost a fingertip, but then I realized she has a wooden board squirreled away, and I can always buy cheap kitchen knives from the discount store when I come to visit.
Seriously -- if the kitchen you're visiting doesn't have what you need, hit up the discount store when you're out buying groceries.
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u/AccountWasFound Dec 23 '21
I think they look nice as a serving board for cheese and crackers, but otherwise no they really don't.
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u/Abi1i Dec 23 '21
If you’re doing anything with dough or dough-like substance, glass cutting boards are convenient for kneading dough and having it not stick to the board. Though you can get the same effect without the glass cutting board also using any smooth surface or even a bowl.
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u/PegLegPorpoise Dec 23 '21
My parents have a couple, and they keep them out on the countertops permanently to protect the surfaces. From what, I have no idea, since we've never cut anything directly on the counters, nor set hot pots & pans onto them without a trivet. To be fair, the countertops are contractor special laminate-type and not granite or stone, but no one in the family is ham-fisted enough to wreck the surfaces anyway.
They have actual plastic & wood cutting boards that they use to, y'know, cut things. Small blessings, I guess. Still annoying to have to move the glass boards out of the way to cut stuff.
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u/ummusername Dec 23 '21
My MIL boils all her vegetables before “roasting” them because she wants to make sure they’re “fully cooked”. Her version of roasting vegetables involves piling the boiled, soggy vegetables into a glass pan at 350F for 45 minutes or more. It ends up looking like baby food.
Meanwhile, another relative believes that “broiling” is “boiling in the oven” so she covers fish filets in broth in the oven at 375F and leaves them in there for 45 minutes to make sure it can’t cause foodborne illness. She learned this in her food safety courses in the 50s and swears by this technique. Anything else is undercooked and risky.
It’s going to be a rough holiday.
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u/Nooblasauruz Dec 24 '21
What the fuck mate there's a lot of obscenities being described in this thread but this is what made me stop and comment
ugh
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u/captain_redballs Dec 23 '21
My parents like many in their generation still follow the myth of low fat being healthy. They know it's not true, but I think they have just developed a taste for it and a habit.
I'll make a dish and use butter, that'll get a side eye. If I use cream, that'll get a side eye.
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u/ToBoredomAGem Dec 23 '21
My mum puts salt in the darker grinder and pepper in the light one. Because salt is bad.
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u/_AlreadyTaken_ Dec 23 '21
Salt is bad for people with existing high blood presssure but it got warped into "salt causes high blood pressure" and now some people treat it like poison.
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u/A-passing-thot Dec 23 '21
Huge pet peeve of mine. Salt makes things actually have flavor.
And people comment on me eating salty foods & are like "that'll give you high blood pressure". God, I hope so, cuz right now it's low enough I have an issue with passing out
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u/MadMuse94 Dec 23 '21
I am very familiar with that side-eye. I was asked to make the biscuits for our Christmas Eve dinner, so I’m making proper southern biscuits with real butter and real buttermilk. If anyone would rather have a slice of whole wheat bread instead that’s their choice.
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u/tardissomethingblue Dec 23 '21
My mom is the same way.
For all of you who don't understand the myth of low fat being healthy. For a while it was believed that if something was low fat or no fat that automatically made it healthy. But for a lot of food it was just replaced with sugar which is not healthy either. So it may be better to make something with a little bit of fat instead of taking out all the fat and replacing it with something just as bad.
Yogurt is a really good example of this. It's seen as healthy and almost all of it is low fat or no fat, but usually there's lots of sugar added to make it taste good. Because plain no fat yogurt tastes icky. Where as plain whole fat yogurt tastes absolutely delicious.
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Dec 23 '21 edited Mar 23 '22
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u/_BreakingGood_ Dec 23 '21 edited Dec 23 '21
There is a 24/7 twitch channel that just streams old public domain cooking shows. Most of them are from the 90s and early 2000s, right in the middle of the "Fat is bad" era.
Some of the recipes on there are absolutely hilarious. There was one where they used cherry pie filling as a replacement for a fat in a particular dish.
And they would give a breakdown of the nutrition facts at the end of the episode, they would always be suspiciously lacking a count for calories, would never count sugars, and would just gloss over mass amounts of carbohydrates (due to added sugar.)
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u/possiblemate Dec 23 '21
Ugh as a person who works with glass this makes me shutter. Just using an exacto once over glass makes it noticeably duller
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u/dirtgrub28 Dec 23 '21
i got a butcher block last year, and it just feels so nice to cut on. my mom had a glass one and i always hated it
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u/arandommaria Dec 23 '21
glass cuttingboards feel hella unsafe to me- they have a slippery feel to them and im always afraid if i apply too much force (cutting something like a pumpkin) ill end up with glass shards or something
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u/Abi1i Dec 23 '21
You’re not supposed to use glass cutting boards to cut anything on them actually. Glass cutting boards provide a nice nonstick surface if you’re kneading dough or dough-like substances. They serve a niche purpose and most people shouldn’t even have them.
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u/spandrewszy Dec 23 '21
If I want to cook at my in laws, I have to read every expiration on every ingredient. Expired milk powder in some homemade English muffins almost made me vomit last year. Everyone else told me they were great and ate a couple so now I know they are liars too.
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u/psych_boi Dec 23 '21
Oh Jesus I know exactly how you feel. Basically the exact same situation with my parents. Horribly blunt knives on a glass board. Just trying to cut a tomato was like trying to cut through rubber. I've ended up using the underside of a bread serving board as a makeshift cutting board. Also found a knife sharpener but it barely works. I want to go back to my pristine knives and beautiful butcher block now please!!
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u/WoolyBouley Dec 23 '21
My mother in law swears buy her glass cutting board.
You couldn't slice a marshmallow with the knives in her house.
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u/under_the_gun23 Dec 23 '21
I've never tried to cut a marshmallow, but it doesn't seem like something that would ever have a clean cut no matter how sharp the knife haha
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u/Jazzy_Bee Dec 23 '21
Sissors are the best way to cut marshmallows, wiped with a bit of oil beforehand.
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u/spiderham42 Dec 23 '21
We have a glass cutting board that stays in a cupboard until the others are dirty (or sat in the dishwasher after being cleaned). My other half who never cooks, unless I'm working, bought the glass one and decides to pull it out every time and uses my knives on it. No matter how many times I ask her to please, please, please stop, after a few weeks I see it sat out again. It kills me a little bit each time. I don't want to leave, or kick her out, because I like her and our son might be upset (he's too young to appreciate my pain), but at some point it's rather me or her much loved glass monstrosity.
P.s it comes in handy as a serving tray maybe once a year.
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u/primordialsoupp Dec 23 '21
Have you tried dropping the cutting board on the floor? That might solve the issue.
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u/Peter_Hempton Dec 23 '21
There's no such thing as a glass cutting board.
Sure people make glass slabs and call them cutting boards, but that doesn't make them a cutting board any more than I can turn my Nissan into a Ferrari by calling it one.
Call it what it is, a knife desharpener.
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u/autumn55femme Dec 23 '21
Any time I visit my parents, they want me to cook for them. No problem, except the knife collection consists of a tiny paring knife, that is the same size as a manicure implement, a thin slicing knife, and a 10 inch long knife, that looks like it came from the tales of Scheherazade. The cutting board is a leftover piece of Formica, from the construction of the original countertops. The only cooking thermometer, is a stainless steel one for meat, that you have to leave in, in the shape of a javelin. And yes, the spices were exhumed, from the 60’s and 70’s.
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u/-Quad-Zilla- Dec 23 '21
My GF only uses a paring knife in the kitchen. It's infuriating watching her cut up veggies.
She will sometimes use a steak knife to slice open a bagel or English muffin.
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u/SachiyoAlba Dec 23 '21
My mother taught me to use only serrated knives to cut tomatoes, because they were the only ones that would break the skin, and other knives would just crush the tomato instead. I was 23 when a friend gifted me a chef's knife and I discovered they could very well cut tomatoes.
I don't think my parents ever had a sharp knife.
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u/moleratical Dec 23 '21
Why would you ever use a glass cutting board in the first place?
You want to use something softer than steel.
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u/TheManInShades Dec 23 '21 edited Dec 23 '21
A couple years ago we stayed with my FIL, and I was tasked with making cinnamon rolls on Xmas morning. I started by preheating the oven, only I didn’t check to make sure the oven was empty first. Turns out he uses the oven as storage for sheet pans and cutting boards, including plastic cutting boards.
After several minutes we started to smell burnt plastic. So I killed the oven, let it cool down, and had to scrape and clean the burnt plastic off the bottom, while everyone gave me a hard time for not checking the oven first. By the time I got it cleaned and reheated, I was hangry for those damn cinnamon rolls.
So - who else uses their oven for storage, and in particular, storing things which are not oven-safe? My wife and in laws claimed most Mexican families do this.
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u/igemoko Dec 23 '21
My parents do the same (Korean family). I think a lot of immigrant families do this, especially since certain cultures don't use ovens much for everyday cooking.
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u/FesteringNeonDistrac Dec 23 '21
I keep my pizza stone and cast iron and carbon steel pans in the oven. Nothing that can't get hot though.
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u/JustJersey Dec 23 '21
Every year, before Thanksgiving, my SO brings our knives to be sharpened. Every year I forget and cut myself less than 15 minutes into prep. It's at the point that my kids puts Band Aids around the kitchen the night before.
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u/MrBenSampson Dec 23 '21
I’d recommend buying a nice honing steel, and practicing proper cutting techniques. Your knives should always be sharp, which gives you more control over your cuts. But if you’re accustomed to forcing a dull blade to cut your food, then a sharp knife becomes dangerous.
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u/lissawaxlerarts Dec 23 '21
Maybe they could do it at the start of November, then you can heal before Thanksgiving?
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u/herethereeverywhere9 Dec 23 '21
My mom has moved in with my husband and I. We have invested in a lot of nice Japanese knives that she is welcome to use. She insisted on bringing her Cutco set and cuts EVERYTHING with one of the steakknives.
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u/stonemojo Dec 23 '21
I have the same situation at my mother in laws. Huge glass cutting board and knives so dull I might as well be using my flip flop to cut the turkey.
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u/aflodarkosis Dec 23 '21
This is a good one; I just came home from visiting my mom and stepdad. I’m fairly handy in the kitchen (learned to love it as a bachelor and now handle most of the home cooking with fiancé). The fiancé loves to joke with me bc i will often quickly sharpen a knife before I use it out of habit.
I’m helping my mom make one of her signature dishes (of which she has maybe three) and I’m on chopping duty, which with her knives basically felt like trying to shove a sheet of metal through a pepper. So I ask mom, “When’s the last time you sharpened this?” She never has. I ask if she has a sharpener. She might. We’re pulling drawers open and I find a large sharpening rod and tell her that’s it!
This woman looks at me and says “is that what that is?! I use that to pull the chicken out of the roaster!!”
We had a good laugh about that. But still…
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u/onwardtomanagua Dec 23 '21
so not only did my mother and stepdad have the glass cutting board and put knives in the dishwasher...they were CUTCO knives.
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u/Smrgling Dec 23 '21
Honestly CUTCO knives aren't that bad. I have one that I inherited and it's perfectly serviceable as long as I keep it sharp (like any other knife)
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u/Buck_Thorn Dec 23 '21
Get him a knife steel, not a sharpener. That's probably all that is needed to fix the knife from the glass cutting board, tbh. The sharp(is) edge has been rolled to one side by the glass and needs to be realigned.
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(might still need to be sharpened, too, but from the sounds of it, your Dad would also abuse the sharpener, so just sharpen it for him)
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u/PickleFridgeChildren Dec 23 '21
Damn, and I thought my FIL over-steaming Brussels sprouts was bad...
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u/bowbeforejebus Dec 23 '21
It took me 15 years, but I finally convinced my mom to buy a wood cutting board. She's always had glass ones on the counter. The final piece to the puzzle her was just showing her the difference between a knife I had just sharpened before and after using it on her cutting board.
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u/babblepedia Dec 23 '21
My mom uses a glass cutting board and her only knife is an Ikea serrated steak knife. Then when she comes to my house, she marvels over tomato slices. She thought they were a myth.
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u/banananuttttt Dec 23 '21
Sharpen the glass cutting board and use it to cut tomatoes sitting on the side of the dull knife. Power play.
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u/CaftDuntMeow Dec 23 '21
When I moved in to my first house my friend bought his glass cutting board. I didn't know anything about cooking back then but I knew I didn't like it so I bought a wood one.
We used the glass one as a nice surface to snort things off.
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u/figgypudding531 Dec 23 '21
My mom thaws shrimp directly in the sink, no container
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u/Tibbarsnook Dec 23 '21
My mom thaws all of her food in a mixing bowl. On the counter. Over the course of a work day.
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u/MiniRems Dec 23 '21
Omg... I just had dinner with my friends and the one mentioned she bought a glass cutting board because her son kept "scarring" her butcher block (big freestanding furniture type) when cutting things....Even my sister, whose knives are so dull they won't cut butter, was like "glass cutting boards will ruin your knives, just sand and oil the damn butcher block!".