ILONA ANDREWS

#1 New York Times Bestselling Author

You are here: Home / Blog / Tired

Tired

Blog, Just Life POST A COMMENT by

The manuscript is currently at 101, 152 words. It is still not over. Very tired now. Brain is also tired.

Coincidentally Kid 2 is finishing her project, so right now our mother-daughters interaction consists of whining to each other through text, “Why won’t it end?” and then staring at it blankly because there isn’t enough brain power left to make sentences.

Must finish…

I have a kind of off-the wall question for you today. I have an old wooden cutting board. I’ve had it for years, and I’m used to it. Long story short, someone squeezed some Heinz 57 steak sauce onto the board and then put it in the sink. Normally, I’d wash it right away, but somehow I didn’t notice it was there until this morning. It sat overnight.

Now the cutting board has a bright yellow stain on it. Like bright yellow. I can’t get it out. I tried Bar Keeper’s friend. I tried lemon. I tried baking soda, vinegar, and a combination of both. I can’t put it into the dishwasher as it might fall apart.

Any ideas? I know it’s just a cheap cutting board, but I like it and want to keep it.

NEVER MISS A BOOK RELEASE

Join 30,000 Subscribers

CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE TO
PUBLISHING NEWS

New book releases, give-aways, and appearances.

CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE TO
BLOG UPDATES

Free fiction, snippets, and funny stories.

Read our Privacy Policy.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. the only other thing I can think of is peroxide. Good luck! I have one in the shape of Ohio I love and I refuse to use it to cut anything on.

  2. Thank you for your efforts! This serial experience (and the comments on the blog) has been very cool! The Horde appreciates any and all of your words!

    I hope there is a break or something fun in your near and long term future so you don’t get too tired/burned out!

  3. Hang in there!
    And the absolute final resort I can think of would be sanding it and re-oiling it, but that would really only be the very final resort…

  4. have you tried fine sand paper to rub off the stained wood?

    Rest as you need, we appreciate all your efforts, but please don’t burn yourself out.

    • Thanks for the stories.

      I have no idea on how to remove the stain but sanding and re-oil seems to be the better option. Just hoping that the stain did not go deep.

      Please, please don’t burn yourself out. Take care.

  5. Sand the wood? A light sanding should work, and it would be probably less damaging than using chemicals on it.

  6. First, I’d say try sand paper to see how deep the sauce stain got. If that shows just a surface stain, give it over the the woodworker in the family to surface sand and buff it clean. Once its been through the sander once, clean it, oil it with food safe wood oil, and use it again.

    Good Luck!

  7. I’m not sure how well it works on stains, but Howard’s Butcher Block Conditioner is good for wood cutting boards. Maybe if it soaked that up, the stain wouldn’t show as much? I think how porous the wood is will determine if it comes out. Good luck! ????

  8. Love Inn Keeper, I have all the e-books and the Graphic Audio editions. Thank you SO much for these as they have made so many days better.

    Have you tried an orange oil cleaner on the cutting board?

  9. What kind of dishwasher-soap du you use? If it’s liquid, maybe just soak the board overnight with it with a wet towel . If you use tablets, you could grind one, scrub the board with it and then do the overnight soaking with the wet towel. (sorry for my bad english, I had a long working day and my brain doesnt want to switch anymore)

    On the other hand: thank you so much for the series, finding a new chapter is always one of the best moments every week.

  10. Electric sander to remove the stained layer. Then oil the whole board with food-safe oil to preserve the wood.

    I assume Heinz57 sauce is yellow because of tumeric, which makes permanent stains.

    Please don’t push yourself to burnout just to meet your self-imposed deadline, House Andrews. This work should be a joy for you as well as for us, so if you need it, we’ll go back and reread all the previous chapters until you’re refreshed again.

    • +1 to the board remedy – we had stain on butcher block style wood countertops. My husband used his electric sander and we used lots of the food grade / butcher block oil after .. worked till someone stained it again haha and then I gave up

  11. Courage!!
    Congratulations on the projects getting to the final stages!
    Can recommend tea, either iced or hot!

  13. Not too sure about staining on wooden cutting boards. But I hope the tired ends soon, and there is rest for you all.

  14. Has probably soaked into the wood. Like wrinkles, consider it a sign of character?

    You could try light sanding, and then cover whole thing with Heintz 57, to get a uniform colour? Maybe followed by application of a food-safe oil, like walnut or almond? (although those can go rancid on you – must be something better to use?).

    Sigh – I spilled some strawberries on the wood butcher block sitting in the middle of my kitchen, and let it sit — I can’t get the pink stain out, and it bugs me.

    • I was going to suggest soaking the entire surface with Heinz 57 sauce at least that way it would be a uniform color change and not just a spot, of course that’s just a last resort fix.

      Sorry about the problem with your favorite cutting board. I’m sure that didn’t help your exhausted state of mind.

      I am taking so much Joy in reading your current innkeeper book (and comments) that I’m sorry you’re not having as much fun writing it as we are reading it and guessing what’s going to happen next.

      Here’s hoping things are looking much better after a good night sleep.

  15. Well, you *could* always go the other way and put Heinz57 on the rest of it…
    I am of the opinion that stains show well loved kitchen tools. There’s nothing wrong with a cutting board with a stain. Agree with the no dishwasher. You can put a lot of work into making it kind of be what it was, or you can embrace what it is. It still is a piece of wood upon which food is cut.

    I’m feeling overwhelmed with resume stuff over here. I left my job and am finding a new adventure now. Plenty of options, good things all around. But I am still tired. Cover letters are the worst. I do good things, and can talk about them if need be. But I got the covid booster shot two days ago, so do I really have to write about all of them?

  16. Take care of yourself.

    About the cutting board, if sanding doesn’t work, try using hydrogen peroxide.

    Bes wishes.

  17. Once it’s in the wood it is darn near impossible to get out if it’s a stain. Best option is to hope it’s a shallow stain and sand it out. Option #2. See if you can reverse the board. Flip it over and have someone refinish the bottom into a new top. I did that once with an older board that I loved but it wasn’t optimal and I don’t know if your board is reversible.

  18. “The manuscript is currently at 101,152 words”… and it is brilliant. I appreciate you are tired; I am not a writer but I know what it is like to be close to the end of a project and just wanting it to be over. If it helps at all, we (BDH) are loving the book… Thank you for spoiling us.

    I am sorry I have no solution for the wood. Time and use will take care of it, I expect but that is not immediately useful.

    • +1 on the brilliant manuscript. I particularly liked the change you made to the third trial. Having a Civilisation type game rather than the murder mystery you mentioned earlier on the blog was absolutely inspired! Letting us and the Dominion see the contestants’ strengths and weaknesses as rulers was fabulous. Thank you very much. 🙂

  19. I agree with the idea that you embrace the stain and just coat the rest of the board in Mineral oil to re hydrate the wood. You remind me of Catalina.

  20. I agree with everyone else peroxide… and for some reason using salt with a scouring pad is something my brain is pushing at me … salt I know is used as a food safe abrasive (like when seasoning cast iron or carbon steel pans) but it might also have some other benefit which I can’t recall exactly…either way safe to try and at worst it costs you a teaspoon of salt.

    You could do just use the board with the stain.

    I wouldn’t be concerned about contamination because after you do all the above … and the food stain didn’t go anywhere the cutting on it won’t release it either =)

    Granted it would be something to “trigger” ocd … but it’s good to work through those brain hiccups.

    Either way a food stained cutting board is better than a plastic cutting board because micro plastics NEVER decay.

  21. The best method I have found is sanding with a palm sander using 600 or better grain paper. Make sure to sand the entire side to maintain a uniform surface. Coat the freshly sanded surface with FOOD GRADE mineral oil. It is colorless, odorless, and will maintain a stain resistant surface. I hope you continue to enjoy the use of the board.
    Thank you for all you do for the Book Devouring Horde, I salute you.

  22. Baking soda packed over the spot and add peroxide, let sit and bubble. Wipe clean. May take a couple times but it gets stains out of wood.

  23. You can try a mixture of floor, linseed oil and turpentine (I used it once for a curry sauce stain on an old Ikea console and it worked very well !)

    • I don’t think turpentine is a good idea for anything that touches food.

      Also, organic things (rags, paper towels, etc) soaked with linseed oil can spontaneously catch fire by generating enough heat on their own, so keeping them in a non-combustible container outside & away from buildings is recommended until disposal.

      Sanding was going to be my suggestion, but the salt & lemon rub followed by sunshine or the baking soda & peroxide may also work.

  24. My advice to you would be keep it and stop fretting about the stain. The stain won’t prevent you from using the cutting board to dice and slice. Yes it’ll glare at you every time you use it but you’ve used everything you could to remove it. I declare in my full capacity of bystander dispenser of unsolicited advice that “It Has Become A Clean Stain And It Shall Remain As Such” !

    TL;DR keep the cut board and stop trying to remove the stain. Just rest and do things that will relax you!

  25. Virtual back pats and cups of tea. This is one epic tale and it cheers me p immensely to be able to follow along with it.

    Sorry about your cutting board. No helpful thoughts except maybe stain it a different wood color? Re-stain it? Heck, name the spot after a character, or vice versa (make the named spot an annoying villain / place in an upcoming project).

  27. My grandma got a stain off my moms wood table by using mayonnaise of all things. She just let it sit for a couple hours. But I dunno if that would work the same cause it wasn’t steak sauce.

    • Yeah, I was going to suggest vegetable oil – slop some on, let it soak, then wash off. Should be a similar effect to mayonnaise. Don’t know if it works on wood, but it works REALLY well on food-stained plastic, like getting carrot or beet stains off a mandoline. And boards like to be oiled regularly anyway, so, worst case, nothing happens!

      Of course, I also second the idea that a stain on a cutting board is a badge of honor…

  28. The stain may leech away over time as you use and wash it. I have a few surfaces like that that. I get most of it out the first time and then the rest gradually fades with time and further washings.

    • This approach — wait it out — has worked for us, too. Beet stains fade, for example. The Heinz customer hotline might have an idea? 800-255-5750

  29. Washing soda, dish soap, and
    Sodium percarbonate have been my go tos recently, in different combinations. Nancy birtwhistle, the GBBO winner, has an active instagram where she tackles stains and household cleaning.

  30. The yellow stain is the chemical curcumin, from the turmeric in the sauce. Curcumin won’t dissolve in water or in soapy water. It much prefers to stick to the hydrocarbons in the wood. If you are going to wash it away, you could use a different solvent. 1) Pure ethanol (grain alcohol) might work. Curcumin is 1000 times more soluble in ethanol than in water. The purest food-grade alcohol that I know of is 190 proof Everclear. [Pure ethanol is 200 proof and never food grade] Ethanol might wash off the curcumin, if it hasn’t soaked too far into the wood. 2) Curcumin is also soluble in acetone. Acetone should evaporate afterwards without leaving much residue in the wood. Don’t use nail polish remover because it has too much other stuff in it. 3) Sodium carbonate (washing soda) is like baking soda, except stronger. It reacts with curcumin in a way that makes it more soluble in water. It also makes the curcumin turn dark red. Not to worry, if the curcumin doesn’t wash off this way, you can turn it back to yellow with an acid (vinegar or lemon juice). 4) If washing won’t remove the curcumin, bleach it. Bleaching agents work by destroying the part of the molecule that is colored. No color, no stain. I tested hydrogen peroxide. No luck with that. Clorox bleach will work. On a dry cutting board, pour a puddle of bleach on the stain and let it sit there for about ten minutes. Wash off the Clorox with lots of water and then air dry until it doesn’t stink.

      • I don’t know how committed you are to a non-toxic cleaning solution, but LYSOL® Bleach Multi-Purpose Cleaner works on everything! I even use it to get spaghetti stains out of Tupperware. Spritz it on affected area, let sit overnight, and clean very well with hot soapy water in the morning. Repeat as needed. I’ve used it to get stains out of bathroom grout, porcelain sinks, and the pink left by strawberry juice off my wooden cutting board (previous commenter mentioned this problem with her butcher block).

      • Just be sure if you use Clorox not to combine it with any sort of acid or you will make chlorine gas – a typical cellulose (wood, cotton, etc) hypochlorite bleach (Clorox) is done at a pH of about 11 controlled by adding sodium carbonate (soda ash, washing ash)

        2.5% of 100% hypochlorite
        1% sodium carbonate
        10:1 ratio weight of solution to weight of cutting board
        Heat to 105F for 1 hour
        Wash several times to remove all traces of hypochlorite

        🙂 I’m a grad student and TA; just finished writing the textile processing preparation test – textile chem is the best degree 🙂

      • So the ultimate BDH-approved solution would be “cover the board completely with Heinz, and than turn it dark red”…

    • If the Everclear doesn’t work, do you use the leftovers to make Jungle Juice and forget you ever had a stomach ???? Does this bring back painful memories

      Good Luck! With whatever method you use

  32. Peroxide or strong denture cleaner solution? I use denture cleaner tablets in warm water to foam out scum/grunge in glassware.

  33. I’d try peroxide first.

    If that doesn’t work, and the stain isn’t all the way through to the back, just flip it over and use the back.

    Or, you could sand the whole thing down past the stain and refinish it.

    My mother’s done all the above for her favorite old butcher block cutting board.

    My father made it for her and as long as it holds together she’ll use it. It’s a beast, at least 3 inches thick.

  34. I bleach my wooden cutting board whenever I cut raw meat on it. I would try the earlier bleaching technique Michelle suggested. Good Luck!

  35. My husband cares for our butcher block areas in the kitchen & per him, sanding is what gets the stain out. He seals them with with a mix of beeswax & mineral oil, half & half is about the right consistency. It needs to be soft enough to get out of the jar. Smear it on and let it sit overnight & then rub it/buff with a paper towel. If you keep up with conditioning the board, it will resist stains somewhat & stains usually come out with rubbing hard with a paper towel or very fine sandpaper. Just make sure you reapply the beeswax mix to that area. Every couple of years he takes them outside & sands the top to smooth everything out. He’s been doing this for 30 years to the kitchen nook table, small counter & a large cutting board. They look great. Good luck!

    Also, just leaving it is always and option. I am less bothered by the stains, my husband-not so much.

    Wishing you some sort of distraction or activity that lets you & your brain get a break with high quality sleep in there somewhere. The end of a project is always hard cause you just want it to be done, done, done so you push, push, push. Take care.

    • For those who don’t want to mix your own, I’ve used Daddy Van’s All Natural Beeswax Countertop Care for years. Beeswax, olive oil, and carnauba wax – that’s it. I use it on our soapstone counters and wood cutting boards – though not nearly as often as I should, of course. It’s a great product.

  36. I’m thinking you may have to sand and re-oil the cutting board. sounds like the stain is into the wood.

  37. I hope you all can rest and recharge for the final slog!

    A light sanding can do wonders. My woodworker hubby has done that, as well as re-glued a few of our cutting boards over the years.

    Just as a crazy suggestion, I had a wooden cutting board that got used with beets. It was stained so badly, I took part of the leftover borscht and painted the non stained areas of the board to match the beet stain. I left the whole thing sit on a cookie sheet over night and then washed it with blue Dawn dish soap in the morning and re-oiled. It was a peculiar color for a week or two but it mellowed into a very pretty color and salvaged the board.

    In a pinch, you could always just coat the rest and let it sit. 🙂 Then you have a board that is a somewhat uniform color.

    (Vinegar and citric acid are mordants that set natural dyes)

    Best of Luck!

  38. I know there are wood bleach products (worked in a paint store), but I don’t know if they are safe for things that will contact food. You may have to sand a couple of layers off; that would also possibly offer you a lighter stain that might bleach out better with what you’ve been trying. Then sand super smooth and possibly apply a food safe oil.

  39. I would try Soft Scrub with Bleach . Rub it on the stained area and let it sit for a while. Then scrub off. If it works reasonably, can try again or maybe a light sanding. I use this stuff on so many things both at home and in my lab that have weird stains. Mostly successfully. Good luck!

    You guys have been going all out for months so I’m not surprised you’re tired. I suppose it’s no consolation, but the BDH sure appreciates all your work! I hope you’ve got a nice little vacation planned post finishing?! Y’all deserve it,

  41. It will make it thinner, but an electric hand sander should be able to remove the stained material. Start with a medium grit (course grit might be too aggressive), finish up with increasing finer grit all over and use food grade mineral oil at the end.

  42. If it were me I would embrace the stain. maybe add a few others too, make is look like it should be multi coloured ???? but hubby’s OCD would have a fit ????
    Like everyone else said, I hope the tired feeling gets better soon, think of it like a Wednesday, over here in UK we call it hump day because it’s downhill to the weekend after it. ????

  43. If it’s solid wood you can sand the stain out. Or ignore it…. Or cover the whole thing in The secret sauce to even up the dye.

  46. Rub some soft scrub on it and let it sit for 10-15 mins. It should bleach out. Bleach the whole board though or you may have a lighter spot.

    Good luck with the manuscript 🙂

  47. Try leaving your cutting board in the sunshine for a day or two. Sunshine is the most effective way to get New Mexico red chile stains out of white cloth, maybe it will work for your board.

  49. My father is a woodworker and makes/sells cutting boards among other things. Sanding it might work if it’s real wood but you’ll have to be careful to be even and not take off too much. He wants to know if you’ve been keeping it oiled with olive (or vegetable) oil because a) it needs it to stay healthy especially in dry climates like TX and b) it protects the wood from stains like the one you’re currently dealing with. Also he says kudos for not putting a wooden cutting board in the dishwasher. ????

  50. I have had immense luck with oxyclean for dried turmeric stains, months old, on colored fabric. I was super surprised. That said, if oxyclean and wash wash wash is still not food safe, try whitening toothpaste also. I saved the accidentally bought one & found it magically removed stains from my white countertops – you the quartz ones that are pretty ubiquitous now?? Those will stain from anything and every little thing, which in an Indian food cooking situation, is a constant nightmare. Lastly, turmeric on the tiles & cabinets I had success with magic erasers + lot of scrubbing. All the best, hope something clicks & works for you, I feel yours and BDH’s pain of stains on well loved things.

Skip to content