Gee, I didn't even know I was a member of the chopping block community.
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The best kitchen advice I ever got was from a fellow who worked in a place that sold kitchen cabinets. He, of course, recommended all the usual sort of base cabinets you may find in the kitchen, but when he zeroed in on the "main work area" he said, "Don't install the usual 34-1/2" high base cabinet here. Instead put in a 30-1/4" high "vanity" type base. Then put a butcher block top on that section. The working height--where you do all of your knife and preparation work--will be perfect! The vanity cabinet is just 21" deep, but bring the face frame in line with the other base cabinets and just ignore the 3" of dead space in the rear."
I followed his advice. I've never missed the 3" of cabinet depth. Every time I cut something on that surface at that height it feels just perfect! And whenever I visit in someone else's kitchen and have the occasion to cut something at "normal" kitchen counter height, I think to myself, "How does anyone manage to control a knife way up here?"
By the way, the butcher block top is 36 x 24x 1-1/2"maple, has been washed daily, oiled rarely, and has made made no one ill in the past 25 years. To me, it seems like the very center of the house. (wife rarely cooks...)
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Postscript: For one year, I managed to pull myself out of the kitchen, and took the family for a long cruise on our sailboat. For that year, our cutting board consisted of a very compact NSF-Approved white plastic cutting board. On at least three occasions (which I recall vividly) the whole bunch of us suffered some sort of food-borne illness. Don't ask! While our very modest galley on that boat probably cut corners on quite a few food safety rules, today is the first time I ever considered the possibility that the cutting board might have been the culprit.
