The Cook’s Kitchen

Today we are welcoming Danielle, from the wonderful Habeas Brulee blog, as a new writer in The Cook’s Kitchen. Here’s a wonderful ode to her knife collection.

I was never one of those people who craved a block full of knives from the start. In fact, it wasn’t so very long ago that I bought my first few good knives. I grew up using my mother’s dull knives; in my entire life, I do not think she ever had any of them sharpened. She bought new steak knives and paring knives occasionally to replace the dull ones, and had a drawer full of beat-up chef’s knives and bread knives without even enough of an edge on any of them to make reaching into the drawer dangerous.

When I took the bar exam, I used some of my graduation money to buy myself a treat - a Shun 10″ chef’s knife, a Shun 4″ paring knife, and a Shun 8″ offset bread knife. I figured that with those three blades, I could handle whatever may come across my kitchen.

Of course, the first thing I did was slice my finger open with the chef’s knife. I wasn’t used to sharp knives, after all, and I spent that evening bleeding all over my chicken. But the wound healed clean, and I adjusted my technique. All good knives seem to have that urge to cut their new masters during their first use, perhaps just to bond properly.

Then came the day I found my partner using my beloved chef’s knife as a cleaver to chop sturdy pumpkins into smaller sections. He was destroying its edge, slamming the blade against the cutting board with all his strength. I briefly considered murder, but decided that buying a few cleavers might be the better option.

A trip to Chinatown was in order.

I found a small, dingy shop with knives hanging in the window on Chrystie St. in New York’s Chinatown. The men laughed when my friend and I walked in and began to peruse their selection of cleavers. We’re both short girls, after all, and I look much younger than I am. But I found what I wanted, and assured the gentleman that I could indeed lift and wield the cleavers I had picked out.

Well enough to make handling them double as a work-out routine, at least.

I have two cleavers, now - a vegetable cleaver, made of stunning cast iron that I rub with oil after every use, sharp and strong for almost any task I can imagine, and a stainless steel meat cleaver, heavy and dull, used for those bone-splitting moments that we all must face sometimes. The two of them together cost me $35, and for now, they complete my knife collection. Until the next time I face a task that my current knives can’t handle, that is.

I love toys and gadgets as much as anyone else. I have more tools in my kitchen that I could ever possibly need, and some I couldn’t even name in their native languages. I choose my hobbies such that I’ll have excuses to buy more toys, sometimes, and cooking is no exception.

But there is something satisfying about buying new knives only when I come across a specific purpose that demands them. It makes me feel more competent, perhaps, to know that each of my knives has a purpose and is well used in its service.

That said, I would still recommend that anyone go out to Chinatown and buy a pair of cleavers, because the day of the stubborn pumpkin comes to us all in the end.