Good wood(s) for making kitchen utensils?

Only thing I don't know is what kind of woods would be good (and what kind to avoid)?

Some features you want in wood for utensils:

• nontoxic
• durable
• closed grained
• attractive
• unflavored

I've seen a lot of utensils made from woods like boxwood, maple, cherry, apple, olive, poplar, and beech. Avoid woods like red oak (very open grain, so hard to wash), teak (oily), cedar (strong flavor), and pine (resinous, flavored, soft). Woods that are suitable for cutting boards are probably also fine for utensils. I don't know what live oak wood looks like... if has large open pores like red oak, skip it; if it's more like white oak, with its fine, closed grain, it'd probably work well.

You don't need a lot of wood to make a cooking spoon, and it doesn't need to be straight or free of defects because you can work around problem areas. Branches that are too small to yield even a small bowl can still be cut into blanks for utensils, and offcuts from other projects that would otherwise go into a burn pile may be large enough to make spreaders and such.