The Beautiful Wreck: Lemon water

I stopped drinking soda water a few years ago. Same with juices. I figured I didn't need all that sugar. I switched to seltzer waters for a while but I decided even then I could do without the expense. Now all I drink when I'm at home is lemon water. Straight tap water with a wedge of lemon. It's a very healthy practice. You can read more about it here.

The benefits of lemon water are MANY

Now, we're lucky in NYC, we have great tasting (and clean) tap water, some have even called it "the champagne of tap waters". So my habit is to always have a fresh lemon at the ready that I can cut on whenever I want a drink. I keep it on a small cutting board, a 'bar board', in the kitchen. I've had several rectangular boards over the years but then one day I was watching the old movie "The Boys in the Band" and noticed that the lead character, Michael, had a cute circular one in his kitchen, there's a very quick sequence when he pulls a lemon from the fridge and cuts it on the board in preparation for a cocktail party he's giving. Here's a few screen grabs of that scene:

"The Boys in the Band": Michael grabbing a lemon from the fridge

His friend Donald hands Michael the round bar board

Michael cuts the lemon

The circular board on the counter next to Donald

A close-up (a bit fuzzy)

I decided I would make my own circular bar board just like the one in the movie. I'm pretty handy with a jigsaw and I have a full handyman's work station in the basement of my house out on Long Island. This wasn't going to be just a plain ol' board though. No, this one was going to do the movie version one better, it would be up on little wooden 'feet' and it would have a handle too. And it had to be a specific size to fit on the marble shelf in front of the kitchen window. If you're familiar with a brand of hot sauce named Cholula, you know that the cap is round and wooden, just the perfect thing for the feet (yes, I keep a stash of saved ones for craft projects, they're too nice to throw out!).

The caps on Cholula bottles are wooden, great for crafts!

All I had to do was cut out the board from a piece of pine and screw in the little feet underneath with some wood screws and--ta daa!--a perfect little place to cut lemons. I designed the handle to be circular too, it also functions as a place to rest a little ramekin to collect the lemon seeds before you squeeze the wedge into your drink. Here's the finished piece, I think it came out great.