The perfect gift for a 30 year old… and other interesting knife related news
In our recent scout around the internet looking for the latest news on chefs knives and knife care we took a quick peek at Facebook.
Right now there are an incredible 83,559 people talking about kitchen knives. That’s more than the capacity of the Albert Park F1 circuit in Melbourne (and more than capacity at Twickenham rugby stadium in London), and almost all of the posts and articles are about how to keep your knives sharp.
We could just say ‘get a Nirey’, but we won’t.
A while back we put together a short article about how to look after your knives (see it here) which has all our recommendations for keeping your knives in top top condition, but we’ve come across a few more tips on the net we thought were worth sharing. They are…
1) If you’ve got a wooden knife block, you’ve probably been storing your knives the wrong way since day dot. The best way to use one of these blocks is to put the knives in upside down! If the blades are facing up, they will retain their edge longer, as each time you take them out and put them back in with the blade down, the edge is dulled by the wood.
2) It’s a common habit, but one you should try to give up if you want to keep your kitchen knives or chefs knives sharp – once you have sliced and diced on your chopping board, resist the temptation to sweep away what you have chopped (or what you are discarding) with the knife by scraping it across the chopping board surface. This sideways scrape does not help the sharpness of the blade – use your hands instead! Or maybe use the back of the blade.
Talking of knife blocks, we of course strongly recommend you use a knife block rather than keeping your decent knives in the drawer (again, read why here). You could use a magnetic knife block, like the IO Shen one, or, if you’re keen to display your character/interest in the kitchen, how about one of these…
The Deadpool knife block
Created by a guy in the US as a demo of what you can do with a 3D printer these days, it’s a model of the lead character in the latest superhero movie. Rather disconcertingly you store the kinves by inserting them into his head.
http://www.cnet.com/au/news/diy-deadpool-knife-block-holds-all-your-stabby-kitchen-cutlery/
The Star Wars knife block
For the real enthusiast, this is a knife set and block made to look just like an X-Wing Starfighter. You’d have to be pretty keen on Star Wars to have this on display in your kitchen, but we bet you know at least one person who ‘just wants one’.
http://www.cnet.com/au/news/star-wars-x-wing-knife-block-standing-by/
Finally, we read an article on domain.com.au (10 kitchen items you ought to own by the time you’re 30′) echoing our thoughts on decent kitchen knives, but in this case giving you a deadline to get a set – in the article number one on the list no less is a decent set of kitchen knives.
Pretty hard to look after if you’re living in a share house, but once you’re in your own place it’s time to get a good set, the author says and recommends the first three (as per our previous advice here – we also suggest a boning knife) – a classic chef’s knife, a paring knife and a serrated knife. Other items on the list include a mortar and pestle and a ‘proper’ coffee machine (a pod machine we assume doesn’t count)*.
So if you are approaching your 30th birthday yourself – or know someone who is – you now have the perfect gift idea.
*we of course would add an electric knife sharpener to that list, if you want your knives to be anything more than ‘just for show’
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PS Total Knife Care is now on Instagram – check us out at @ioshenknivesaustralia. While you’re there check out #cheflife – 2 million photos and counting
