Equipment

So this post is a tad inspired. By shiny stuff. I recently received a birthday gift, and being a cook, most of the gifts I receive are kitchen related. Well, this gift wasn't just kitchen related. This gift was a chef's knife. A knife is to a chef what a gun is to a soldier (or at least that's what the movies tell me). Some chefs are more than happy to inflict bodily harm on anyone who touches their knife.

Well, the knife I received is a Shun Bob Kramer Meiji Chef's Knife (http://www.williams-sonoma.com/products/shun-bob-kramer-meiji-chefs-knife/) and it is the greatest knife I have ever held. It is also the sharpest. I have cut myself without noticing several times already, and I've only had it for a week. That's how sharp it is. And that's what inspired the post today!

TAKE GOOD CARE OF YOUR TOOLS

I could probably walk into every home in the USA and find dull knives in 90% of them. Most of the time, this is because the knife has never been honed. Everybody knows about sharpening knives, but how many people know about honing them? You know that metal rod you always see chefs running their knife on real fast? That's a steel. They're honing their knife. Your knife's edge doesn't degrade rapidly enough to require sharpening on a regular basis - the most minor of imperfections on the blade can all be straightened by honing your knife. Almost everyone owns a steel. Just run your knife along the steel towards  the handle at your preferred angle. The Japanese prefer a very sharp edge at around 10-11 degrees, whereas the French and Germans prefer 18-20 degrees. Do both sides, and don't try to imitate the chefs on TV. We all laugh because they're ruining the edge doing it that fast.

That's all!