Yes.
Quite the contrary.
A video I often post when all this knife garbage pops up:
Use what you like. All I can tell you is when conversations about good vs. crappy knives pops up in a kitchen, those making the case for high-end stuff usually get challenged until they cry uncle. There is ALWAYS somebody in a kitchen who can grab some “piece of junk” (actually perfectly capable) knife still hot out of the dishwasher and cut circles around some knife head. Be that guy. I’ve seen people so humiliated they quit. Better be able to do more than brunoise a carrot.
But if you’re cooking at home, enjoy yourself. Let your imagination run wild. Your first and foremost goal with a knife is to not leave chunks of it in the food. And, yes, it can happen. I am delighted when an edge fails by folding and not fracturing.
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People who can afford to buy themselves fancy toys do it all the time. Buying a lambo doesn’t make you have the skills to win a professional auto race. You still need to train hard for a long time and still probably won’t win. The only people who believe fancy knives come with fancy knife skills are people without knife skills. If you are in a michelin starred kitchen without knife skills and think the knife makes the cook, you shouldn’t be in a michelin starred kitchen. But it really is a just a silly point to keep making over and over. And I don’t remember ever judging anyone for their knives in my career.
Cooking should be fun and rewarding-- even if it is a career. Use the tools that help you make it a better experience.
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To be fair I got the same POV from Soren in his now hidden post.
He’s just a knife geek that feels the boring prep work in a home kitchen can be made a little more funny by using some knives that are dear to his heart.
The more years I’m into this cooking hobby, the better I personally feel I have become to find the ideal balance between using great cookware and knives and using high quality ingredients to make the best quality food you can.
I think Soren also is trying to find that same hidden path where you balance between having fun with your knives and cookware while still having focus on cooking technique and high quality ingredients.
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The more years I spend doing things like bbq and being a professional cook, the more I find out that no one knows everything, no one does everything perfectly, and we all should try to continue learning, pushing ourselves and improving. There are multiple paths to the finish line. Anyone who believes there is only one is a fool and anyone thinks getting there is easy is a fool as well. Putting down others to make yourself look better was never part of that equation for me.
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When I started getting into hobby cooking on a more serious level 10+ years ago I gave myself 25 years to master the basic cooking technique on a fairly high amateur level.
Now that 10 years have passed, I’m still improving on the basic techniques but I have come to realise that I’ll never ever finish learning to get better at even the simplest cooking techniques.
As soon as I feel I’m there and get a bit sloppy I’m immediately reminded that I have to stay humble and focussed on my cooking technique to improve my consistency level.
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There is a vast universe of technique and knowledge to explore both the physical and intellectual-- finesse, palate, appreciation and repetition. From learning about ingredients to being able to braid spun sugar around a confection to learning a drag cut. There is just always more to learn and refine. If you are open to it, it never ends. People can argue about metallurgy and stropping, but that is only a small cluster of the world. I literally view every time I’m holding a knife as an opportunity to improve. Always have. I hope you never lose that ambition. Confidence and ambition are two of the best tools of a cook-- not false bravado, but confidence.
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You hit the nail clean.
Your writing pretty much sums up what I feel. I’m not trying to tell anyone what to do.
I was merely trying to share my joy about cooking with knives I like.
I also admit that I should have bin smarter then letting my temper dictate my writing like that. The guy ain’t worth arguing with.
For those of you who was offended by my last text. I apologize.
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Thanks god. I have a iPhone which I don’t know 70% of its functions. You should see my vacuum cleaner too. I could have bought a cheaper and less powerful vacuum cleaner. Come to think of it, sometime I buy these wagyu beef or matsutake which I do not need to survive.
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the audacity…
what gives you the right!?!?
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Well 80 percent of the functionality is in 20 percent of the features, or 90/10, or something like that. It’s some old canard that’s used in programming, or management. Point is, not all of the functions are equally useful … or valuable. If you get what you want from it, all is good.
The audacity is strong in me.
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I really like the texting feature, the camera, and the weather, but my favorites are silence and off. My loyalty to Apple is strong enough that I’ll always have one, but it spends far more time in the box with the car keys than anything else. The one or two times I have needed for it to do something a bit obscure, the intuitive nature of their IOS has been my salvation. Now the iPad, that’s another story. Now that I am retired, the desktop and Word for Apple are mainly used for minutes of various committees at church.
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I use my iPad more than my MacBook. I’m able to do very intensive and complicated things on it now. I think of my iPhone as the backup - it has all of the info and most of the apps (dont ask how many I’ve curated) but it’s too wee for me to use for long periods - particularly since I don’t do social media And I’ve never been stricken with FOMO. Apple’s Borg/ ecosystem helps me function, and I’m someone who was Microsoft-schooled, right down to provisioning servers. I look at the phone like it’s the Library at Alexandria. So much accessibility to information Texting is so much easier than email, and of course, photos. It’s a computer that occasionally functions as a phone. Wanna know how many weather apps I have?
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Ya think?
If someone (other than than El Jefe) in a pro kitchen brought in a very high-end knife or roll, it would either disappear or be the subject of endless derision. I know a chef who tried (at Eleven Madison Park) and it ended poorly, despite his virtuoso knife skills.
I don’t mind people making blade and sharpening esoterica a hobby. It’s their money, time and business. It can be a fun hobby, and there is valuable knowledge to be had. What I do object to is the implication that coin-of-the-realm commercial cutlery is somehow lacking.
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I’ll spare you the original Hawai’ian proverb that captures this, but it literally translates to “Not all knowledge is within your canoe shed.”
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I do. I really do.
You get what you pay for. Definitely.
Over the last several months I have gone off the rails buying knives: two carbon steel Nogent style chef knives, a 7" and an 11 1/2" from Bernal, both B stock, and some Au Sabot Paris stainless steel table knives from Flotsam and Fork to use as steak knives. They are all wonderful. I have fully acclimated to the big knife, and the 7", my wife’s chef knife, feels like a parer. The steak knives cut like butter. I would be quite content with only these knives and a couple of spreaders. As for keeping them sharp, a 500 grit water stone and an F. Dick 14" sapphire are all I need. The steel was the most pricy item but still under $100. (That is actually a sort of extreme amount when I think about it.)
To people buying their first knives, I would urge them to consider sizing up an inch or two. They will quickly get used to them, and the extra length will serve them well. The other night I cut a chuck roast in half. I trimmed and cubed one half faster than my wife could wrap the other half to freeze. I was not rushing.
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