In our opinion, the old fashioned box graters work the best since they are sturdy and offer several different grating sizes.

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!

To obtain more flavor from parsley, remove the stems and only use the leaves. Use a scissors to cut the leaves into pieces instead of chopping with a knife. Chopping generally causes the leaves to become mushy