My favorite knife is a Wusthof 8" Chef's knife. I've had it a long time, and it feels natural in my hand. I think all of my good knives were gifts, so they're mix and match. I have a 4" paring knife that's Henkels. It has a stick-out-y handle guard, which feels weird when just holding it, but is fine in use. I love how thin and pointy it is. I use those two knives for almost everything.

I have an old in drawer, four slot block of knives that were my mother's, which I keep mostly for sentiment. They've been sharpened as much as they could be. I find them useful now and then for odd things that require odd knives.

From college days, I have a Chicago Cutlery chef's knife, which is great for dividing bread dough. It has a thicker (taller) blade, and isn't very sharp (I could sharpen it, but I like it duller for dough). I have a hand-me-down Chicago Cutlery butcher's knife of similar age which I use for dismembering raw chickens (it's very sharp). I like these for their purposes.

Awhile back I was given a Wusthof slicing knife. It's very long, blunt and curved nosed, and has a Granton edge. The Granton edge works great, but, while the knife is very sharp, I have trouble slicing with it.

In the knife drawer are also a few lesser paring knives of different shapes and sizes, a plastic lettuce knife, herb shears and poultry shears--both of which I love, and a paddle mandoline--which I also love.

I have a big DeBuyer V-mandoline for big jobs and juliennes as well. Plus some specialty cutting tools in my gadget drawer: Avocado slicer (not necessary, but makes life easier if you serve a lot of sliced avocadoes, carrot curler (also not necessary, but takes less shoulder strength than a knife), tinsnips for artichokes, mushroom slicer for large, cookpot quanities where thicker slicers are better and one is too hurried for a knife, egg slicer that makes nice little cubes, strawberry huller which is a lot faster than a knife, and egg topper which I can't do with a knife.

For cutting boards, I keep my white nylon one out. I prefer my maple one, but I can throw the nylon one in the dishwasher, and the maple is delaminating from overuse and age. Wood is naturally anti-bacterial, but the cracks can be a problem, and it can't go in the dishwasher. It should get hard dry before reuse. So I use the nylon one most.

I have a couple of plant dust and resin ones which are a bit too small, and they're too hard to be easy on my knife edges. I use them for sitting in front of the TV while processing large batches of small things, and as spares when I'm cooking a lot of different things. Plus, I have a big wood carving board, and a bigger maple baking board.

I also have a good quality steel, which I use regularly (straightens the edge), and a two sided sharpening stone in a wood case which I use when necessary, but I'm careful with my edges so I don't have to grind them needlessly.

Knives: I went with Wusthof, though "real" Henckels (not Henckels International, made in China) appears to be the same quality, so it's a matter of personal preference, if it's a choice between these two. There are of course other German and Japanese brands to consider, but those two are the most popular, I think.
I felt that the 8" chefs knife would be too cumbersome to handle, so got a 6". That's too short, I wish I got the 7", but not spending another $100 on it...
Also got the short straight paring knife - love it; a weird soft cheese knife with large round holes in it, which doesn't really work, and the 5" serrated utility knife

http://www.williams-sonoma.com/products/wusthof-classic-5-inch-serrate d-utility-knife/?pkey=cknives-wusthof

which I love.

Cutting boards: have a few wood boards, but got a couple of these plastic ones recently with ingeniously raised edges to prevent spillage, and they are great.

And finally for chopping onions nothing beats the little green veggie chopper!

http://www.williams-sonoma.com/products/veggiechop-vegetable-chopper/

Cheers.

I'll be storing mine in a drawer insert.

I use knife trays just like Sally123, and we have 2 work areas, one near the main sink and one on the island with a prep sink. The knife trays really help reclaim counterspace.

I have a mix of different sized wooden and plastic cutting boards. Some are bamboo, which is thin and very hard.

FWIW about a year ago, after following discussions on http://www.cheftalk.com/f/71/cooking-knives and elsewhere, I got

Edge Pro Apex 3

Konosuke HD Wa-Gyuto 210mm

which have transformed what I can do -- the Edge Pro because I can now sharpen easily at home. All knives need regular sharpening.

And the Japanese knives are just a revelation: thin, sharp, light. My chopping is faster and more precise. Carrots almost fall apart; onions do what I want them to.

Incidentally cutleryandmore.com has a clearance sale on knives at the moment. I got a few small ones -- good Henckels prices.

A plastic cutting board for vege, wood for meat (more sanitary) and--a trick my mother taught me--a tiny little wooden cutting board that I keep standing up behind the faucet. Great for quick little work.

"The [University of Wisconsin] researchers purposely contaminated wood and
plastic boards with bacteria and then tried to recover those
bacteria alive from the boards. They also tested boards made from
seven different species of trees and four types if plastic. They
incubated contaminated boards overnight at refrigerator and room
temperatures and at high and typical humidity levels. They tested
several bacteria, Q Salmonella, Listeria and enterohemorrhagic
Escherichia coli Q known to produce food poisoning. The results
consistently favored the wooden boards, often by a large margin
over plastic boards. The scientists found that three minutes after contaminating a board that 99.9 percent of the bacteria on wooden boards had died, while none of the bacteria died on plastic. Bacterial numbers
actually increased on plastic cutting boards held overnight at
room temperature, but the scientists could not recover any
bacteria from wooden boards treated the same way. A major question is why wood is so inhospitable to bacteria. The researchers have tried unsuccessfully to recover the compound in wood that inhibits bacteria, and is continuing the research."

On top of their own laboratory research that wooden boards inhibit bacteria, the UWisconsin researchers were unable to find research to the contrary. It's not that they found contradictory research on plastic boards, but that they didn't find any research at all, i.e. no laboratory testing, no comparisons of various types of boards, using sophisticated instruments to measure, etc. It's a myth with no source.

I do agree that there are many plastic cutting boards, including the two resin ones that I don't use often, that are too hard.

This isn't an absolute thing.

I also am on board (pun intended) with Marcolo and AKChitown. Wood is the way to go. Here is a pic that I already happened to have of both the Shun and a cutting board I made. The woods are end-grain maple and black walnut. In the photo, it is still shiny from one of its initial oilings.

Although I rather like this board, it pales in comparison to one that remodelfla has. I officially request she post it here. (In case she does not see or heed my request, scroll down about 1/3 on the thread linked below. Sublime.)

I think - ad hoc theory here - that the plastic-is-cleaner myth probably stems from the perception of a dishwasher as a "sterilizer" and the feeling that you can toss a plastic cutting board into the DW, jack the temperature therein and voil�.

It's all not true in several directions. But that's just, when I peer inside of myself, where I think I can faintly discern the nonsense feeling emanating from.

I have a ton of those flexible plastic cutting boards, and I don't have enough of them yet. I love em. I know they're not clean, and I'm not one whisp surprised to learn of a mysterious antibacterial nature to wood. I would be very surprised, however, if there were little in the literature about it or conversely about plastic. I did a job once for someone making sanitation equipment and there was extensive testing of all surfaces kitchen that had to be undertaken for FDA approval -- there's a whole world of that stuff out there. I actually think this is something someone knows quite a bit about (not me). [the punch line, BTW, was friction. You have to rub surfaces to get them cleanest. Chemicals can sometimes do a so-so job more quickly, but that's it. Physical abrasion is the bottom line. People keep "discovering" this over and over again in all sorts of new manifestations (I just saw a big hulabaloo over this same conclusion regarding teeth, for example)].

What I love about the flexible cutting boards is:

- you can designate them for different types of foods, e.g. onion, veggies, chicken, meat, fruit -- on the theory that you really can't keep smells or compounds from the board so I'd rather isolate it. And you can write this on them. If you're really lucky you can find em in different colors for this purpose but I always cheap out for the plain-colored ones. There aren't enough different colors in any case.
- I like that they're thin so having a zillion for different substances, doesn't take a lot of space.
- I like to steam greens sometimes and squeeze them out - you can do this with the flexible cutting board. Roll em up tight, then chop. I did it tonight, in fact. Yes I know all that liquid is vitamin-ish. Pour it into a ziploc and toss it in the freezer for the next soup day.
- They're relatively cheap - toss when too groddy.
- You can move your choppings straight to the stockpot (or whatever) by just lifting and bending - that is, you can funnel the choppings in the flexible sides.

As it happens mine don't actually go well in my new DW, but that's OK, they fit on the bottom grid of the prep sink for ... scrubbing.

Advantages of wood:

- antibacterial-ish, as mentioned
- arrive at the holidays unbidden in baskets - oh those baskets! (ycch).
- rigidity can be your friend, as in, e.g., cheese board, etc.
- probably more secure if you're a professional chef chopping all day long.

I have a dozen wooden boards as well, from water table inserts to gift basket freebies to sacred relative offerings. I still like the plastic.

Love the cutting board storage ideas.

I do the plastic board for raw meats. Yes, I know wood is better, but that board is rather busy during prep time so I whip out the plastic for the quickie meat job.

I love my wooden board - basically a butcher block. it's about 20x15x3. Love the 15x20 dimension... wish the 3 inches high was more like 1.5-2 inches high. It makes the cutting surface a bit too high for me. Uncomfortable barefoot. ok with my normal house flipflops (thick soles)... would be perfect if I was an inch or 2 taller.

I've tried to talk my dh into trimming the board down for me, but I think that's a no-go. He still remembers what he paid for it for my bday 2 years ago (total splurge) and doesn't want to accidentally ruin it.

I've somewhat considered having the counter it sits on (& cooktop area) slightly lower when we redo the kitchen. It would make the pots on the stove easier to see in, right? But it seems a bit counter-productive to do such a drastic, permanent alteration for a cutting board -- plus I can't figure out how to make it look good (on the short end of an L)

Board -wood only. I somehow have a weird sensitivity to the sound a knife makes when hitting a plastic board - it just goes right through me and gives me the shivers. Weird, I know. So I use wood cutting boards. I realize wood is heavier and more of a pain to clean than just tossing the plastic board in the DW, but honestly, I don't find it a big deal to wash the wood board (thank you large-single-bowl sink!). I have a very large heavy wood cutting board that I don't take out that often. Mostly I use a couple of wood boards that are smaller and pretty thin and light; I think I got them at BB&B and Ace Hardware.

People have mentioned oiling their boards. For me, the stuff that really keeps wood boards in good shape is not an oil. It's a moisturizing beeswax cream called Clapham's Beeswax Salad Bowl Finish. The secret to application is that a little goes a long way, so be skimpy on the amount you put on each time. It's food safe, no odor except maybe the slight whiff of beeswax which is quite pleasant. An added bonus is that after I've applied some to my wood boards, my hands are nicely moisturized!

I have a big honking Wusthof Grand Prix chefs knife that I love and use the majority of the time. It's 10" long and has an extra wide blade. I also like to switch it up and use chinese cleavers. On a whim, I'll alternate between a Dexter stainless steel cleaver or carbon steel one I bought in Hong Kong. I'll also use my Wusthof Santuko when slicing veggies sometimes.

For special jobs, another knife I use a lot is my Wusthof boning knife. It's my go-to for butchering, trimming and filleting. For breads I have the larger Wusthof serrated bread knife. When we make sushi at home, I pull out a 12" yanagiba. For small jobs, I have assorted parers. I also keep some knives like a smaller Wusthof chefs knife in a toolbox that I take with me if I have to cook at someone else's home or on-site somewhere.

Do I NEED all these knives. Absolutely not. But they're fun and do make some jobs easier. They even create a cooking mood sometimes, especially with ethnic cuisines.

For the cutting surface, I have an 18x18 4" thick Boos chopping block. I treat it with Claphams occasionally. If I have to sanitize it at the end of a session, I do it the way my father taught me. Just rub in some salt and let it sit while I clean up elsewhere in the kitchen. I then comeback and wipe it down with a clean wet towel. The salt doesn't penetrate the wood, so it doesn't salt the food if I use it later to cut something. I also have a few of those plastic cutting mats. They're good for splitting up cutting duties in the kitchen. I also use it on top of the block when it isn't contaminated but not totally wiped down and I want to cut something else on it without mixing flavors.

Like a few others, I have a large (24" x 20" x 2") end-grain walnut cutting board that sits on my counter and use it for everything except raw meat (use a plastic for that). I use it under by electric frying pan and crock pot too - not supposed to put those directly on Silestone. It's a nice alternative to Boos and definitely not as costly.

I also must mention that I bought the cheese knife and peeler from a Pampered Chef party and both are excellent, and I am generally a reluctant guest on the home party circuit. The peeler I liked so much, I had a friend going to another party buy me a second one.

The information on wooden cutting boards is news to me. I am not sure I will immediately change my practices, but my mom will only use wood so one less thing to lose sleep over!

Here's a link if anyone is interested.

FWIW I still use plastic sometimes, but it has to go through the dishwasher.

We have a knife slit for our prep knives.

Bread knives and a few small knives for cutting cheese and sausage and such are in the drawer next to our sandwich station.

I notice bread knives seem to be harder on my wood edge grain block. Is that normal? Is it okay? I feel like I'm ruining it...