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Any suggestions for cleaning a marble pestle and mortar? I normally just wipe it out with a cloth. If it is really messy, a slightly damp cloth.

I would use a stiff plastic bristled brush first, and then use warm water, not much soap. If it's porous at the bottom, which it should be, you don't want any muck clinging to the surface. More imporantly, my experience has been to only use one mortal/pestle for one type of "thing". For instance, I would only use herbs in one. Like grinders, they carry oil essences from item to item even if washed well.

It's interesting that you don't recommend using any oils in a m&p, SK. I have a suribatchi and it is made for grinding anything, including pastes that would have oil in it. I don't know any other way to make such a thing, even grinding garlic and salt into a paste (which would stink up your m&p). I also make pesto (since you need to pound, not cut, the greens to release the oils) and gucamole in my marble m&p.

Would you just have 2 m&ps, one dry and one wet?

I got one of the cheapest ones on Amazon - it was three mortars and three pestles like those Russian dolls. The littlest one can hold like a thumb of ginger. But I don't know how to use it and I also think I need to do mail order for sichuan peppers. I got Fuschia Dunlop's Sichuan book and it's really perfect. I don't think I'm using the mortar and pestle right. The five spice mix didn't mash up like tv cooks do it. I still had lots of hard bits. The reviews said ceramic was a good material so that spared me from going for the giant lava rock ones which look unbreakable even against feral strength. I feel like I should have just gotten a wooden pestle and went at it in my smallest Visions pot.

I use my stone every day for every smelly and sometimes oily thing you can think of to pound, including anchovies. I'm pretty sure that a mortar is not meant to be US, A-1 disinfected and deodorized. Food patina = umami. Brush it out under water, rinse it, and let it air dry. One works for everything.