[Sca-cooks] Need advice/suggestion for counter top

[Patrick Levesque]

Greetings everyone!

I'm de-lurking briefly to get advice from your respective experience.

I've just bought a house (hence the lurking) and fortunately only have minor
adjustments to make.

One of them involves the counter top, which is right now covered with a
ceramic cooking plate. I need to get rid of it for 2 reasons:

1) I have two young kids who are used to climbing on stool near the counter
to help me cook and I don't want to hurt them
2) I got a spanking new convection oven w/ ceramic plate this fall, I like
it a lot, and I'd hate to get rid of it.

So... I'm left with a counter with a big, square hole in it.

What I've been thinking is that I could fill it with a cutting board
instead. However, I'm not too sure about this idea, and of the potential
damage a glass or ceramic plate will cause my knives.

In the worst of case I'll just replace the entire counter, but if I could
make it more efficient by adding some kind of gizmo instead I'd be more
willing to do that.

Any ideas or recommendations?

Thanks!

Petru