Live the Live ™

I devour chicken at least three times week…fried, broiled, grilled, barbecued, smoked…it’s all good. But because of that, salmonella paranoia takes over my brain. Watch any cooking show and as soon as the host touches a piece of raw chicken, they show him or her washing their hands before doing anything else. Panicky corporate lawyers make sure you see that so nobody gets sued for something very bad that can be very easily avoided.

I use these easy steps to avoid salmonella worries in my kitchen…

Washable, disposable: the best way to keep salmonella away.

I open the plastic wrapper of the chicken in the sink. You won’t believe how much stuff splatters around when you unwrap chicken. Do it in the sink and it won’t fly onto your countertop, windows, eyeballs, or nearby fruit bowl.

I buy very sharp and very cheap kitchen knives, like the one above. They go for about 6 bucks. Unlike my expensive prized chef knife which never goes into the dishwasher, these knives are easily sanitized by skipping the hand washing and letting the dishwasher do the work. I sharpen them when they get dull, but eventually, the get tossed out and I buy new ones. They’re not for every job in the kitchen, but they are perfect for any questionable food product like raw chicken.

While I’m at the store, I also buy a couple of acrylic cutting boards. The size and shape are a personal preference, but the idea is to use these boards when slicing and dicing chicken or any other nasty gooey thing. Unlike wooden boards that absorb everything, these are non-porous. The muck stays on the board, which is easily sanitized by tossing it in the dishwasher. The last thing I want to be doing with my deluxe wooden butcher blocks is bleaching and scrubbing those suckers because I cut up a couple of chicken breasts on them.

Finally, I buy myself a box of cheap disposable gloves. The main thing is to make sure they don’t slip off my hands while handling a sharp knife, or else I’ll be visiting the emergency room. When I’m done prepping the chicken, I just toss the gloves in the trash.

To be safe, I still rinse my hands with soap and water afterwards. But I don’t feel like I need to dip them in a vat of sulfuric acid to get them clean, and my kitchen workspace remains spotless.

Salmonella solved.