“Raw chicken and your salad should never share a cutting board.” — Dale Pruitt (67) builds a three-board set that keeps raw meat juice, onion flavor and plastic off the food you eat raw.

His wife Carol ran a school cafeteria for 26 years, where every cutting board had one job. When she retired, she wanted the same rule at home, so Dale built her a set by hand from wood the Florida storms had brought down. Today it’s on kitchen counters from Maine to California. This fall, Dale is making his very last batch.

Redland, Florida. The pole barn behind the Pruitt house has a tin roof, two open sides and lumber stacked under the roof to dry. An old radio plays country music on the shelf. This is where every set is made, but not for much longer: on November 27, the day after Thanksgiving, Dale is pulling the barn door shut for good.

Dale has cleaned up after South Florida’s storms since Hurricane Andrew in 1992. Most of what comes down is earleaf acacia, a fast-growing tree brought to Florida in the 1930s and now listed among the state’s worst invasive species. It’s brittle, and in every hurricane or summer thunderstorm it’s the first thing on the ground. “First tree down in every storm,” Dale says. “Every single time.” Most of it goes straight into the chipper. Under the bark, though, it’s a dense, warm hardwood.

“I’ve never cut down a tree for a board,” Dale says. “The storm does that. I just can’t stand watching good wood go to waste.” So he started hauling the best trunks home on a borrowed trailer instead.

Back at the barn, the trunks are sawn into planks and dried under the roof for months. Many low-cost imported boards skip that step, which is why so many of them warp or split. The stack drying there now is the last one Dale will ever haul home.

The idea for the set came from Carol. In a school kitchen, raw chicken never goes near the board the lettuce is cut on. When she retired, she wanted that rule at home, just not the colored plastic boards she’d looked at for 26 years. “I wanted real wood,” she says. “And I wanted everyone in the house to know which board was which without asking me.” Dale went out to the barn that same afternoon.

Made by hand in a Florida barn

Dale cuts, scrapes and oils each board by hand. Every one is 13 by 10 inches of solid hardwood, big enough for a whole chicken and heavy enough to stay put while you chop. The surface is scraped, not just sanded, until it’s perfectly even.

That’s the difference from a big-box set. Shoppers have described store-brand boards that arrived cracked and filled with wood putty, smelled of chemicals, or showed knife marks after the first use. Dale’s boards get no stain and no lacquer, just food-grade mineral oil.

Carol had one more request: “If they’re going to sit on my counter, they should look like books.” So each board has its job burned into the edge like the title on a hardcover spine, never printed on.

Why this is Dale’s last batch

Dale has made a little over 1,900 sets since Carol retired. Now two things are running out: the wood, and Dale.

The wood. Dale has never cut down a living tree for a board, and he won’t start now. But the big hurricanes have mostly missed Redland lately, and the towns around Miami are clearing out earleaf acacia as an invasive species, so the chippers get there first. “I used to get calls every week,” Dale says. “This year I got three.” Buying lumber from a yard is out of the question. “Then I’m just another guy selling boards.”

His hands. This is hard work: a chainsaw in the Florida heat, trunks wrestled onto a trailer, every board scraped by hand with his whole upper body. Three sets a day used to be easy. Now one is a good day.

Carol has watched his grip get weaker for two years. “He’s given half his life to other people’s storms,” she says. “I’d like the rest of it.”

And no one is taking over. Kayla is a nurse in Miami, their son lives in Atlanta, and Dale never had an apprentice. He won’t hand his name to a factory either. When the drying stack is gone, the scraper goes on the wall and the barn door stays shut.

What one board does to your food

Most of us use one board for everything. Chicken on Sunday. The same board, washed, for salad on Monday. Strawberries on Tuesday that taste faintly of onion.

First, what comes off the raw meat. Juice from raw chicken, pork or fish runs into every knife mark on a board. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s food-safety guidance is clear: use one cutting board for fresh produce and a separate one for raw meat, poultry and seafood.

Second, what the board remembers. Garlic, onion and fish work their way into a cutting surface. That’s how a sliced apple ends up tasting like last night’s salsa. “People blame the fruit,” Carol says. “It’s the board.” That’s why professional kitchens give each kind of food its own board.

No plastic under your knife

Many kitchens that already use separate boards use plastic ones. In 2023, engineers at North Dakota State University measured what comes off a plastic board every time a knife comes down on it. The study made national headlines.

Those knife grooves cause a second problem. In lab tests at UC Davis, food-safety researcher Dean Cliver found that scarred plastic boards were very hard to get clean by hand, while well-used wooden boards behaved almost like new. “Wood gives up wood,” Dale says. “I can live with that.”

Carol’s three rules

• MEAT & FISH: Raw meat, poultry and seafood go on this board and nowhere else, just as the USDA recommends.
• FRUITS & VEGETABLES: Two sides, one simple rule. When the words on the edge read right-side up, you’re on the fruit side. Flip it over, and that side is for onions and garlic. Your strawberries never meet an onion.
• CHEESE & BREAD: The pale oak board never sees onion, garlic or fish, so it goes straight from the counter to the table as a serving board.

“You don’t have to remember anything,” Carol says. “You just look at the edge.” Even the grandkids get it right the first time. And because the names are burned in, they’re still there after years of washing.

Fresh wood, fresh start

Every family has that one board that’s done it all for fifteen years. With one job per board, all three stay smooth and fresh much longer. And hardwood isn’t just for home cooks: the FDA Food Code allows hardwood cutting boards even in restaurant kitchens.

Each set arrives already oiled and packed in its stand, ready for the counter, and takes up about as much room as a row of cookbooks. It also makes a gift people use every day: for the Thanksgiving host, the new homeowner, or the cook who already has everything. This year is the last chance to give one.

At home in kitchens across the country

The online shop was his granddaughter Kayla’s idea, after Carol’s friends from church kept asking for sets of their own. This fall, she’s helping Dale get the very last ones out the door.

Where to get Dale’s set

The set is available only through Backroad Goods, the small shop Kayla runs for Dale. If it’s not right for you for any reason, send it back within 90 days for a full refund. No restocking fee, no questions asked.