One of the pleasures of visiting friends abroad is sharing breakfast. While the preparation varies, unlike in Japan, there's no rice served, so the way bread is presented is particularly fascinating to me as a Japanese person.
Bread, sliced on a charmingly rounded cutting board, looks truly delicious. Even with its marks of use, the board itself is a beautiful sight on the table.

A single plank of wood enriches the breakfast hour.

While making your own cutting board is rewarding, the pieces by American woodworker Edward S. Wall, whom I encountered in recent years, are truly exceptional.
The material used, bird's-eye maple, is an extremely rare wood, occurring in only one out of every 500 hard maples. Characterized by its distinctive bird's-eye flecks, this cutting board, where the wood grain's allure is maximized and its organic proportions perfected, is an artwork that combines beauty and function as a daily necessity.