having used wood bench tables for pastry in culinary school, we scubbed with hot soapy water, scrapped it with a bench scrapper, and then sanitized it and scrapped it again. but if you are planning on using this strictly for pasta/pastry and don't intend to put any other ingredients on the board(like using as a cutting board), just scrape off all the flour/doughy bits so it's clean and smooth, it takes quite a bit of energy to actually take wood off; and keep it dry. if you get it too wet, it will start to crack more easily than if you don't get it wet at all. with that being said, using dough/pastry on it is perfectly acceptable as for oil, i'm not sure what to use that is food safe, but won't gum up. it is a beautiful board though...I hope this helps