There seems to be little difference between hard wood and plastic cutting boards from a safety standpoint, as long as they are properly washed and sanitized after each use. Personally, I like the feel of solid wood. One piece of advice--buy large cutting boards. Don't bother with these tiny boards that everyone seems to have in his or her kitchen. They are not user friendly. Once you get down to serious cutting or chopping, the small boards are always woefully inadequate and downright maddening!

Buy a sturdy stainless spatula for general uses and a Teflon spatula for your non-stick pan. In addition, buy a silicon baking spatula for scraping bowls. Silicon is an amazing substance which is heat resistant up to 550 degrees.

Granite is an igneous rock. It is formed as a result of the slow crystallisation of molten magma at depth in the earth's crust. Uplift and erosion has over millions of years resulted in this material outcropping at the surface. The minerals which make up granite are generally quartz, felspars and various mafic minerals (amphiboles, pyroxenes, micas and secondary materials). It is the size, distribution and precise chemistry of these minerals which give the granite it's colour. The silica content of granite should be at least 70%. In the stone industry "granite" has been a term applied to almost all igneous rocks and schists.