Cotehele, sounds wonderful! I can just imagine that gorgeous kitchen of yours full of people enjoying a wonderful feast.

Over the years I have accumulated an assortment of various size chafing dishes, to use at our annual holiday Open House, where we make and serve food to 80+ people. Now, we use our wood top island constantly for buffet style serving for smaller gatherings, and these dishes are perfect for this type of serving. I use small trivets underneath the heat sources so that the wood doesn't get damaged. I would imagine the same thing would work for you. And it's a great time of year to pick up some of these on sale!

Eliz

Eliz, good idea. Your Open House sounds wonderfully festive! I have never had near that many guests at once. I admire your skill, flair and courage.

When I need to keep food warm on my granite, I use one of my many wood cutting boards. If I need to keep food warm, I will put some tiles (left over from the backsplash and laundry room floor) in the oven to warm them, and set the bowls on the tiles, set on wood cutting boards (wood seems to insulate better than placemats set on stone counters). I also have an electric griddle that I set on low to keep food warmer/hot.

It sounds like a good time was had by all.

I use square, round, and oval cork "mats" that I got at Bed, Bath, & Beyond several years ago.

Anne

Nobody would care if the food was cold in your beautiful kitchen. I realized the same thing about my soapstone over the holidays too.

Have you gotten the tin for your doors yet? Can't wait to see it.

Isn't that funny about how stone absorbs heat and/or cold. It thaws a couple of steaks or a pound of hamburger in no time, however. Your Open House sounds great and you must have been so proud to show off your beautiful kitchen in action.

I posted the same complaint right before the holidays on a thread where someone asked about quartz counters. Mine are doing the same thing. I used old quilted placemats this time but I'd like to get one of those stones you warm in the MW. They sit in wood to insulate the warm stone from the cold stone counter. It's not a bad idea if you have a buffet of appetizers out for an evening of cards or mah jongg and only 1 or 2 dishes are warm. For keeping a longer line of dishes warm on a stone buffet surface I'm thinking the old chafing dishes with candles might be good. I'm going to keep my eyes open in antique shops.

Here is a link that might be useful: Dining Stones

I know you can buy those wire like holders that you can put sterno candles in at places like Party City.

cotehele... I'd eat ice cold food in that kitchen of yours any day of the week!

I use cork (circles, rectangles) and a stainless steel rack - all from IKEA. The rack is nice looking and at around $5, well priced.

I love the title of your thread. I've been saying that all along!! Especially when my friend who isn't entirely robust was talking about lining her shower with stone. But no one talks about it much here. Except when I first joined there was someone in MN who had heating coils under her granite island top.

Great suggestions above. If it's not a matter of laying out the food and having the pretty stone show beneath, you could also use a table pad or even cut a bed pad to size, and put a cloth over it. And even the cork or trivet on top. Very festive.

Then there's the technology. They have cordless hot trays nowadays, for instance. I don't know if they work well. Hot trays do work well. And I saw a holiday caterer this year use three votive candles and an inverted wire bowl as a warming platform for a big bowl full of hot dip. Worked really well. Doesn't have to be fancy chaffing dishes for everything...

So happy to hear that the new kitchen and keeping room worked so well and according to plan!

Seems a minor (and completely solvable) problem for an otherwise successful 'maiden voyage!' All the other pluses outweigh that little negative. I'm sorry you had the problem this time, but I'm sure won't again, and mostly, I'm very happy for you that the layout worked so wonderfully!

Thanks for your well-wishes. It was a fun day. No one complained about cold food, but it bothered me. We have a box of field tiles from a bathroom remodel. I'm going to try heating some in the oven and see how that works.

Prill, the punched antiqued zinc will have to wait. I am switching the foil for embossed ceiling tile. I will post pictures after they are installed.

funny... while reading this thread I had qvc's 'kitchen must have's' show on. they just came on with a set of 3 insulated serving dishes - hot/cold. they have lids. about 33.00 w/shipping I think. look them up. called Insocore K24133

guess I could include the link! duh...

unless i'm not supposed to include links like this... someone tell me if i shouldn't have done this!

Here is a link that might be useful: serving dishes

I keep a lookout for old Salton warming trays at yard sales. They are low-profile warming trays in different sizes, and you can usually find a few on ebay.
Obviously, they need a plug available, but the adjustable temp control serves a variety of warming tasks. My current one has a separate hot spot for a coffee pot. I think it's always on a hotter setting than the rest.Just how, I do not know. Just for the heck of it, a link to one on ebay; it is a very large one, and even has a warming drawer.
Casey

Here is a link that might be useful: Warming tray

Thank you cotehele for bringing up this issue. In planning our new kitchen I am worried about a cold surface on our island. I was imagining eating breakfast at the island on a cold winter morning... and having to touch the cold stone surface. I didn't occur to me the food would cool off sooner.

Fine home building magazine had an article about a heated granite island. Some wrote in to say how wasteful it. Has anyone here done this? Is it wasteful?

Oooh - Great thread!

We have a lot of soapstone scraps leftover from our kitchen counters, so time for an experiment, I think.

I'll compare the temperature-holding abilities of an item placed directly on our soapstone countertops, on a thick placemat over soapstone (our usual buffet-service technique), on a trivit over soapstone, and with a pre-heated soapstone 'trivet' in a wooden holder over soapstone. I know the pre-heated soapstone will be much better -- but how much? and for how long?

Put a beautiful heavy cloth runner (or tablecloth folded in thirds the long way) down the centerline of the island and place hot dishes there, with condiments and cold dishes toward the outer edges where temp isn't an issue. If you're Martha Stewart-y you could weave greenery or gilt ribbons in and around everything to disguise trivets and cork pads but that's more fluff than I like.

I use one of the buffet servers similar to the one in the link I attached. Sometimes I use the wells and sometimes remove them and just use the base as a warm tray. I've also relied heavily on a Nesco roaster oven, depending on the situation. And I thought a lot of these newer ovens came with warming drawers.

Here is a link that might be useful: buffet server

The portable induction unit would also work well for keeping a dish warm.

Sweeby, we have some good size pieces of soapstone as well. Most are under the downspouts. I may need to bring them back into the house, lol. I'll keep watch for the results of your tests.

OK -- One test down. Here is my method and my results:

I have two identical Calphalon saucepans, so I filled each of them with four cups of water, covered them, then brought them to a boil. Meanwhile, I had been heating up a scrap of soapstone (roughly 12" square by 3 cm thick) in the toaster oven for 30 minutes at 250 degrees. When the water came to a full rolling boil, I removed the soapstone mini-slab, set it on a platform made of three wooden spoon handles (so the hot slab would not sit on the cold countertop), then placed both pots of boiling water about 6" apart on the same stretch of countertop. One pot sat on the pre-heated slab; the other on the 'regular' soapstone countertop, which was at room temperature, a 'refreshing' 66 degrees. I have a thermometer with two probes, which I calibrated by putting both probes into one pot and flipping back and forth between the two probes -- they both read 206. Then I placed a probe in each pot, set the timer on my microwave and took the following readings.

Not surprisingly, the pot sitting on the pre-heated slab stayed hotter longer. For simplicity's sake, I'll abbreviate my results using the time: pre-heated result / countertop result, (difference).

5 min.: 190 / 163 (27)
10 min.: 179 / 152 (27)
20 min.: 156 / 131 (25)
30 min.: 140 / 118 ( 22)
45 min.: 123 / 105 (18)
60 min.: 113 / 98 (15)
90 min.: 96 / 86 (10)
120 min.: 89 / 80 (9)

My conclusions: For a dinner buffet, where the food will be served within 30 minutes, then IMO, pre-heated mini-slabs of soapstone will make a significant difference. But for a cocktail buffet, where items need to be kept warm for an hour or more, the difference is not big enough to do the trick.

Some other miscellany:

- I first tried the same test with the soapstone slab only being heated for 5-10 minutes. The difference in performance was amazing. The extra 20 minutes to bring the slab fully up to 250 really made a difference! The under-heated slab only showed a 10 degree difference after 10 minutes.

- The section of soapstone countertop where the hot pot sat directly was still warm to the touch 30 minutes after I had removed the hot pot. (78 degrees versus 66 degrees nearby.)

I'll try it without the wooden spoon handle 'buffers' tomorrow (hot soapstone on cold soapstone), and compare that to thick towels. I might also re-run the test heating the soapstone mini-slab to 350 or 400 instead of 'only' 250.

But now Hubby's all game for an under-counter heating system!

Tom Silva from This Old House has heated countertops which I think he installed after the counterops. He connected it to his hot water heating system. It was his idea and now his wife loves it.

I really want to do this for my future island.

and if you don't have a heated counter top - qvc has those temptations baking dishes. (they've been showing those a lot the last few days).
they come in many colors, with a rattan trivet and a wire (black) rack to set them in. that would keep them off of the cold counter top - or protect your table from the heat.

they could be preheated and food product put into them before being set out (for a dish someone brings to your home). they also have lids which would help to keep the heat of the food in from the top.

gee, I love the yellow with lavender. I need to start cooking to justify buying those...

Here is a link that might be useful: temptations