I saw the original video posted yesterday of Marco chopping the onion, and all I could think to myself was that I needed to buy about 10 pounds of onions tout de suite and try to drum up 10% of his skill with a knife. I’d like to die one day being about 50% as good. That would suffice. It was a fun video to watch. Now, after another 24 hours of this, I’m sitting here stunned at the way it has gone since, though having been a lurker for some time here and on CH, it shouldn’t surprise me, yet still it did. It’s been entertaining! For the record, I have a fondness for that Victorinox knife, but I have other more expensive knives that work well, too. I wouldn’t call it a beater, but if it died tomorrow, I wouldn’t feel bad about spending what it costs to replace it. I’d feel more sad about the loss of some other $$ knives I own. I use some cheap Victorinox steak knives to cut open Amazon boxes at times. The horror.
The amount of gaslighting by one person here is something to behold. I’m a home cook and have what I would call enthusiast skill level, and cooking is one of my most fun hobbies as well as a necessity. I’d be happy to have Marco drop by and do my prep work alongside me and share a family meal at the holidays. He might even pass along a tip or two. I’m sure he has family somewhere and likely cooks with them at home. I bet if he were back in the restaurant kitchen and up against a wall and short-staffed, he might appreciate any one of us home cooks doing what we can to help out as long as we stayed out of the way. I wouldn’t be on the prep station, but I bet I could do something useful in a pinch. Imagine that, crossover skills!
LOL. When I first saw the name I thought the exact same. Then, I was more confounded when I finally came across them in a Thai store. “Why the hell would they have all these different models/sizes for Kiwis?” Hah, I got it figured out, now. I’m not so sharp. Kiwis are. Best bang for the buck, IMHO.
I always thought they were cheap enough I could toss them if I ruined them. They’re so easy to sharpen, even when I folded the blade on one, I worked it out and it’s still a cuttin’ for me. Love 'em.
Great video with MPW making a delicious looking salmon piperade but I can’t help but think this dish could have benefited from a bit of Knorr chicken stock pot.
And here chef/home cook Marco demonstrates his alternative way of chopping onions:
I hear ya. I can only revel at this man’s skills. I’d venture a guess that most of us are at the “enthusiast” level. I love to cook, at home, in my kitchen. I could not imagine doing it 10-12 hours, having to time things out and remember when, who, where, etc.
If Marco needs help in his kitchen, I’d like to be asst. saucier. He would be the head saucier, of course. I bet you learn more from him in a shift than a year of reading/watching chefs.
The OP of this thread is about a comparison between two knives: Misen vs. Mercer.
I suggested that a home cook should stay away from the Mercer Genesis, because it was intended for professionals and sold exclusively through restaurant supply.
The discussion took many twists and turns, but I maintained that amateur home cooks are different from those that have had professional exposure–and that’s a good thing.
Olunia, the OP, already owns quality Wusthofs, and even though the Mercer Genesis seemed a bargain, it remains to be seen how much it benefits her.
JustCharlie provided an off topic subthread in which he suggested that the inexpensive knives commonly used professionally was all that any home cook needed, and even provided examples from his own home kitchen as a retired chef.
That’s when the first Marco Youtube was posted.
I may have exaggerated, but I contrasted Marco’s demo with standard practice for knife technique–and we were off to the races . . .
My usage of knives at home is radically different from JustCharlie’s–and I attribute it to completely different ways of thinking about home cooking from the get-go.
It’s really petty of me such that I’m embarrassed to even mention it, but here goes nothing and let me admit openly that he has much mire knowledge than I do on the subject of knife sharpening and that my grievances are in part childish.
I got the impression that he started a career on this channel as a hobbyist and not an expert. In other words it seemed like he was a knife sharpening enthusiast who decided to make a major YT channel, but he didn’t have major experience or training in advance of this decision. It got on my nerves that it seemed like he was on the steep part of the learning curve while knee deep in this full time social media blitz. I don’t appreciate that. Contrast this with Kenji who is an expert who then made a big YT channel (on cooking, not knife sharpening). If you’re an enthusiastic amateur, you’re not qualified to volunteer to be the world leading voice on a subject, even if you want to be, even if you’ve self promoted yourself into that position.
His laugh. The sound of his laugh reminds me of a weasel, like he got away with something, like tricking someone. And the things he finds funny don’t seem funny to me.
I’m sure he’s a good guy, and I’m even more sure he knows way more about his subject (at least by now) than I do. Watch his channel. Click subscribe and smash the like button. But I can’t benefit from his videos due to my petty personal pet peeves.
Dear Vecchiouomo,
I was at Central Market on Westheimer and Wesleyan 4 hours ago and they had plenty of fresh Morels at $49/pound.
I was once gifted a small bag of them from a friend who foraged them. I kept them in the refrigerator but they soon became overrun with little microscopic insect and I tossed them.
How do you enjoy using them? Maybe I’ll go back tomorrow and buy a small amount and follow your recipe.
I think your peeves are well founded. He has no credentials, and his support initially came from Cutlery and More as their spokesperson–so he was selling product more than sharing information from the beginning. Contrast that with Chef Panko, who buys most of the knives he reviews with his own money.
He has now started his own online store: and tutorial business:
Possibly. I have only watched a couple of Youtube videos, and have not followed him closely. However, I have a couple of his videos and I haven’t found any major misinformation. Since Ray keeps bringing up this Chef Panko person, I must say that guy clearly has said more than a couple of factually false statements.
I will have to watch a few more videos to get a better assessments. I would say it is not unusual that many people start making videos before they become true experts. Let it be Dave Martell who probably was one of the first small wave of professional knife sharpeners into Japanese knives or Mark Richmond launched his online knife store. When looking back at their first videos, they were both teaching and learning at the same time. In my mind, at least these people were careful about the information they share and not overreaching and making erroneous claims. Now, let’s not talk the things between those two though.
I think I would do them in a simple butter and shallots sauté and toss them in pasta with a splash of cream. I am headed to CM at Westgate after I finish my coffee! Thanks!
Unlike Ryky of Brrfection, who seems OK to you, Chef Panko has very strong credentrials.
Chef Panko went through years of training–some of it in Japan–to become a Sushi Chef at a restaurant in the Netherlands. I’ve interacted with Chef Panko for the last three years by email, and he actually related some of the details of that training in Japan, where he was trained to use a deba on live fish. I’ve been very impressed with his knowledge and skills–especially as a professional in the Netherlands restaurant industry.
I don’t think I have enough knowledge myself–or the chutzpah–to claim that Chef Panko makes factually false statements.
Probably so, but I am not sure what our invention would be. I actually enjoy his passion and his off the beaten path thoughts. My issue, however, is that I have yet to figure out the path(s) he is on. He has taken us many places we probably would not have otherwise gone like his somewhat weird treatment of a Wagyu ribeye, to touting Debas and Chinese cleavers as substitutes for chef’s knives to chopping carrots to test knives but buying from China, to perceiving a wall between home cooking and professional cooking.
I certainly do not perceive a wall, only a huge level of differentiation. In my belief the average home cook can enhance their cooking by paying attention to professional demonstrations and tips. Even if I am making spaghetti and meat sauce, steak and potatoes, or just a salad, things learned from others make them better and easier. Heck, I am still learning from cookbooks, websites like this one and Youtube, and even TV cooking shows after over half a century in the kitchen. As Chaucer said, “The lyf so short, the craft so longe to lerne.”
Why do you think that home cooks like me are interested in the professional world of cooking at all? Certainly there are some who dabbled in that professional world who are. There are others who watch cooks on TV–and do their best to emulate the pro.
But there are also home cooks and enthusiasts like me who develop a home kitchen as a hobby, and develop something completely different from the pro.
That’s me.
And my special interest is not the world of high end restaurants, but rather the diversity of home cooking all over the world–especially Asia–and the fusion of that diversity happening right in front of me in SOCAL.
I have a Japanese collaborator who comes to my house for professional work we do together and kitchen knife testing that we do for fun.
My equipment is not holding me back from becoming a professional chef. I live in a different world.
Exactly who has ever posted credentials on such a video site? If you were sincere, and don’t trust my word, you could contact Chef Panko directly and ask–his contact information is there–and he responds.
