How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Our Quartz

Earlier this year, we installed quartz kitchen counters. We chose a low-contrast white “Riverstone” quartz offered through Menards. While all the fabrication is done for you, you have to provide and confirm measurements, then pick up and install the countertops.

Riverstone quartz shortly after installation in April

Before we ordered the quartz, I dreamed of white marble countertops, which are both gorgeous and period-appropriate. Although I tested marble thoroughly, I still fretted that I wouldn’t really feel comfortable cooking and canning in a marble kitchen unless I did something like this:

Photo: Joshua Kristal, via South Brooklyn Post

Quartz is supposed to be extremely durable and stain-resistant — between that and the cost savings, I felt good about our decision to skip marble. But some online commenters say that white quartz actually is stain-prone. Regular cooking hasn’t touched it, so I wanted to give it a real test.

Since we are swimming in strawberries, I made jam and pies this past weekend. I took no precautions with the quartz whatsoever. And I am ridiculously messy. The Kev can attest that fine motor control escapes me when I enter the kitchen.

Jam makings EVERYWHERE; great-grandmothers rolling over in their graves all over Texas.

Just to be really perverse, I allowed a few of the marks to sit until I was done canning and baking.

Dried-on jam goo up in here; great-aunts disinheriting me way over there.

Some of the messiness was unplanned. I made a couple of strawberry-rhubarb pies. One of them was a rebel and threw off the crust of oppression.

The Great Pie-tastrophy of ’14: Dali-esque but still yummy

After I’d cleared all the debris on the counters, I wiped them with a damp rag. The dried spots took some extra pressure to get up, but…it all came off with a damp cloth, leaving no stains.

Maybe not quite this sparkly, but real dang clean. It’s metaphysically this sparkly.

Outside of this test, the only thing that has left a mark that didn’t just wipe up was a permanent marker. I managed to transfer bright blue Sharpie ink from my hand onto the main stretch of counter (right in the middle of the sparkles above). I wasn’t able to shift it with a rag, but I averted a complete freak-out by trying an eraser sponge. Almost immediately, the eraser sponger removed the mark, leaving no trace.

In short, big thumbs up for white quartz!