Kitchen Design - Use of Marble

[Will Martin]

I would hesitate to have a piece of marble permanently installed in a
countertop. While I agree that it is the best material for candymaking and
many forms of pastry work, I would think it would be better to use a
portable slab that could be chilled and that could be put out of the way
when you need the counterspace for other things. This would be for the
ordinary home kitchen. [Of course, assuming you'll ever have enough free
refrigerator space to chill a slab in is pretty much a pipe dream anyway! :-)]
Marble does tend to be naturally cooler than the surroundings, of course.
We use a chunk about 2 feet square and an inch thick that the wife bought
at a local stonecutter's. It's heavy but manageable.

One of the best and most inventive installations of a marble slab in a
kitchen I've seen was in a description of his kitchen setup by one of the
well-known cookbook authors; I think it was Claiborne or Franey, but it
could have been someone else. He had an island set up with a small
refrigerator on rollers that fit under the island. The ordinary metal top
of the refrigerator had been replaced by a marble slab. This constantly
chilled the marble. So when he wanted to use it for candy or pastry work,
he just rolled it out from under the island and it was ready to go. He
used that small refrigerator for the supplies related to that cookery.
Of course, that's a pretty expensive approach for a non-professional to
adopt. It does allow a larger area and you don't have to lift the slab
when you use it, plus it is out of the way and protected when not in use.

Regards, Will
wma...@stl-06sima.army.mil OR wma...@st-louis-emh2.army.mil