cutting board class #1

after a good night's sleep, i woke up feeling a lot better. not sure what was going on, but i can only attribute the bug from a coworker and my swift recovery from kevin's TLC. thank you always ... i am not a fun sick person to be around. i basically make myself immobile from the bed or couch :D

after a long friday, one of the busiest days of the year so far, i met my giddy husband on the F train platform and we headed down to gowanus, brooklyn. gowanus is home of the famous gowanus canal and a part of south brooklyn which had been the site of decades of industrial use and coal gas manufacturing in the 19th century. currently, it is zoned for mid-level manufacturing and the neighborhood is full of artists lofts and studios. we actually went on a self-guided tour of some gowanus studios back in october and so were excited to go back.

we stopped by fletcher's brooklyn bbq for a quick bite and hurried over a couple blocks to makeville studios for part 1 of kevin's birthday gift from last spring: gowanus furniture's cutting board class with pete raho. we had rescheduled this class multiple times last year due to conflicts with our race, travel, and friend's birthday events, so were especially glad to finally commit to this date.

the space was decorated with raw wood of all shapes and sizes, tools, masks, and machinery of all sorts lined the walls. we were welcomed with beers and wine, and i polished off three chocolate covered biscuits within minutes of arriving. our class was on the large size - 12 of us in total, plus pete, the instructor, and his friend, rachel.

pete worked in the auction house business before receiving his mba from nyu stern a few years ago. he has since started his own business, gowanus furniture, and one of his best selling products are his kentile monogrammed cutting boards. his passion for gowanus and his product was quite infectious, and he conducting his class is a very easygoing, relaxing way. it was a great way to spend a friday night!

each group was given 4-5 pieces each of maple, cherry, and walnut, and asked to spend a little time to come up with a design. kevin and i decided to do our initials, "J" and "K" in morse code! "J" = short-long-longlong and "K" = long-short-long so our first initials alone would span almost the entire cutting board. we used walnut for the "J", maple for the "K", and maple for the background. once rachel helped us to cut our wood pieces to size, we applied wood glue generously to the same face of each piece and carefully clamped them together with gigantic woodworking clamps. the clamps would force the wood glue to stay in place and to ensure all sides of the cutting board were flush. 

as our cutting board was suspended in midair by the clamps, the wood glue made a cool design as it dripped and beaded up! almost looks like pancake batter and mini pancakes yum. had to remind myself not to grab a piece!

and that was it for class #1! can't wait to come back next friday to cut it to size and sand it down!

looks like someone's ready to install a woodshop in the apt!