My Most Cherished Tools

So I’m sure everyone has their favorite kitchen toys…

The expensive pots, pans, baking sheets, casserole dishes, platters, tins, tools, gadgets, what have…. drawers and drawers of stuff. I have a bunch of stuff as well, a lot unnecessary but I mean they keep coming up with this stuff, and I’m sure most cupboards are busting at the seams, I know mine are. Though I didn’t start the kitchen I currently cook in, if I did I don’t think about ¾ the thing that are in there would be there but you never know when you’ll need mini muffin tins and a nutmeg grinder ( well I do use that often).

There are things in the kitchen I cannot live without and this entry is dedicated to one of my most prized possessions, my knives.

 

I’m excessive with knives, I love them… they really do make a difference, I don’t chop with Global’s but I’ll take one if anyone wants to get me one… I’ll do your chopping for a couple of months. Nothing beats a well taken care of sharp knife, nothing. And it doesn’t need to be the most expensive thing on the planet either. Continuous care of these instruments are vital to your success in the kitchen. I think most people have the hardest time getting in the kitchen because it takes them three hours to finish chopping their vegetables for whatever they were doing and then by the time they figure it all out their over it and won’t try again. I hope this isn’t you but if it is let it be known if you chop continuously, making those mistakes and still patching up that finger and steaming ahead to the next onion or head of cabbage, soon you’ll chop all the things you need in no time flat. Practice makes perfect. I didn’t learn to chop 22 qts of onions without a little crying and a couple of bandages. Same thing applies to anyone.

I remember always loving knives. I know it’s one of those scary things that people kind of double take at me when I talk about but it’s one of my pure obsessions like some chicks love stilettos and purses, I love sharp steal. My collection is not super huge and doesn’t bare the most expensive brand names and they are silent in their success.

The knife shops in Tokyo are probably one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen. I dream about those places and wish that Los Angeles would have somewhere like that. I’d work there on my off time that’s how obsessed I am with knives. I look online all the time but I have to hold something to know how it fits in my palm to really know the extension of what I could do with it.

This is me in Kappabashi buying my sashimi knife, I also bought my vegetable cleaver there but not at this store.

I bought two knives in Japan one is my love a Japanese Sashimi knife Yanagi-ba-bōchō

This is my favorite picture of me for a reason…me and yanagi

And the other knife I bought is a Chinese Vegetable Cleaver. I know I was in Japan and I got a Chinese knife which was also made in America strange I know by that time in the trip money was tight and my sashimi knife was about 100 bucks but still I wanted this knife really badly it was about 25 dollar which was nothing for how much I use it. It’s kind of in between a santoku and the Japanese vegetable cleaver Nakiri bocho which when I have the money I’ll be getting one of those as well but for now I like that the blade is thin and I particularly like the idea of holding a small cleaver to cut vegetables it’s light, the blade is thin, and the handle is wood which is very comfortable for long processes of countless veggie cutting which I do often.

I also bought a pair of metal chop sticks in Japan that are amazing for plating. I’m pretty good with chopsticks seeing as I used them all my life. I used them for garnish work and small precision plating.

Okay down the line… I’ll start at the beginning

I had at home a knife I bought at Ikea, you know that place where they have all that crappy furniture you have to put together yourself and its a big warehouse looking mess. Well I got a knife from there and I’ve been using it a good 5 years. Its always sharp it never lets me down. I love that thing stays with me all the time. Hence my belief in caring for knives instead of buying insanely expensive things.

I bought knives for culinary school to start. I think what they initially wanted me to get 8“ Chef’s knife, steel, boning knife, and paring knife. So I did I bought a starter set at bed bath and beyond with the complete knowing that they weren’t the best knives but I didn’t have money. I had spent about 6000 bucks on school and books so it left me with just getting what I could, bed bath and beyond coupon 20% off you got your knives… They worked out for a little while but as soon as I bought my 1st set and bag, done hook line and sinker. I wanted more always more.

When I started working my collection grew more money, more knives. Soon for my birthday my boss at the time added my santoku (for more info) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santoku. Soon thereafter somewhere along the way my Henckle pairing and boning knife was mixed into too many knives at work and went missing, very upsetting dumb rookie move learn the hard way kind of stuff. I bought new ones and learned the hard way to keep an eye on every piece of equipment I had.

I bought a utility slicer, serrated knife, cleaver, and 12-inch Chef’s Knife from R.H. Forschner/Victorinox (this is my other love child) I love large knives love them and this one was particularly eye opening I used it a lot to chop large items and cut through sides of beef and the skin from parma prosciutto , and R.H. Forschner 10″ Cimeter/Butcher Knife which is another one of those things I felt in my hand and had to have, a good portion of these I bought for my growing love of meat fabrication, necessity, and largely because I just wanted them.

So this is a view of my babies they are taken care of as one of my most loved artifacts of my cooking journey they tell their own stories and have many more stories ahead of them.

Thanks for sharing in my obsessive desire of fine cutlery