Sharp Knives

I own a set of Wusthof knives and a Chinese cleaver. I mainly use the cleaver. I use the cleaver because that's what my mom started me out using and I became very comfortable with it. I can easily create my own ground meat, smash garlic cloves, chop veggies and meats, and do just about anything with it. I am equally comfortable using a normal chef's knife to do the aforementioned tasks except the chefs knife isn't as good at smashing garlic since it doesn't have much weight.

Since I use my knives daily they get a lot of use. I know that my knife needs sharpening when my cleaver can't cut a green onion. O.o Yes, it had a hard time cutting the green portion of the green onion; it macerated my green onion. I immediately did research as to where I could get my knife professionally sharpened. Ming normally does the knife sharpening but it takes him a long time since I had several I wanted to sharpen and he was too busy to help me.

I found a place in San Mateo, called The Perfect Edge, and it had received a ton of positive reviews. I went to the shop and it was like a food lover's haven; they had just about everything. Before I delve into the goodies I bought there, let me get back to the knives.

I have never had my knives sharpened professionally so I was very excited at the prospect of having it done. I had them sharpen my cleaver, a paring knife and kitchen shears. It really does make a difference having the knives sharpened professionally. My cleaver cut through raw meat like it was butter; I was in awe. The paring knife wasn't really dull but since it gets a lot of use I brought it to get sharpened. I realized just how sharp they made it when I peeled ginger with the knife. I barely touched the ginger and the skin started falling off. Wow. I recommend that everyone get their knives sharpened professionally just to see the difference. I probably won't have it done very frequently but perhaps twice a year will be sufficient.

I also came across this knife sharpener called AccuSharp. A lot of people raved about it, including Cook's Illustrated. I frequently don't agree with CI so its endorsement of it made me weary. After doing research I found out that the AccuSharp knife sharpener is not something you want to ever buy. It basically shaves off a ton of metal on a knife and makes the blade very jagged. The knife is sharp but its a bad type of sharpness. It will tear the food instead of cut it smoothly. For more details, go here.

The reason you get your knifes professionally sharpened is because they do a great job and they take off minimal amount of metal from the knives, ensuring a longer lifespan of the knife.

The other goodies I bought from The Perfect Edge include 4 oz ramekins (perfect for individual servings), 6" cake pans, and a Kyocera vegetable peeler. My vegetable peeler was starting to become dull and I decided to get a new one. The Kyocera one is very sharp and I'm impressed by it. So far I've only used it on a daikon but it worked very well. It took only a very thin strip of the skin off which is good; it means there is more of the vegetable that can actually be used to cook with. :)