Have a Knife Day

When I ordered my Katana knife yesterday, It said delivery would be after Christmas. Guess what? It was delivered today... they upgraded me to overnight. Now I like that customer service! Amazing...considering I qualified for free delivery! Must have been Santa's magic!

Bill, just curious, but if you're so happy with your meat market cast-offs, why are you buying new knives?

Well it's kind of like when you have to do a chore quickly and get it out of the way. If it is scrawling a quick signature, I'll grab a BIC or whatever is available. But I enjoy using fine instruments and if I am pondering something, taking notes or writing to a friend, I'll probably use a vintage fountain pen (signed a bunch of cards with a 1908 Waterman this year), simply because I enjoy using good instruments.

If I had someone coming over and had to render a carcass ASAP, or I was doing rough work chopping through bones, I'd grab the stainless utility knives as I don't care about harming them and I don't worry about enjoying my work when it is a 'slap dash get it over with' job. But if I am doing a special dinner, or layering a terrine or anything interesting, part of the enjoyment I get from the process has to do with the use of carefully tended instruments that do the job better than the basics.

I could drive a clapped out rusty junker to get from A to B. I have a hell of a lot more fun firing up something like the Lamborghini or a Jensen to get there though. It costs more to run, but it converts a mundane trip to a joy. That's what its all about - enjoying what would otherwise be a boring quotidian chore.

Its not just about the end, its the journey.

When I ordered my Katana knife yesterday, It said delivery would be after Christmas. Guess what? It was delivered today... they upgraded me to overnight. Now I like that customer service! Amazing...considering I qualified for free delivery! Must have been Santa's magic!

We await your review!

Merry Christmas to all.

My Christmas seems to involve edged things this year. Aside from the new knives, I/we got me a set of secateurs I'd been lusting after. I do a lot of gardening and have to cut some pretty heavy brush and end up half the time using the secateurs I always carry in the garden rather than running up to the house to get the larger pruners. After a couple of hours in the garden, your hand and wrist can get pretty sore. I'd used Felpro and dabbled with a few others and had been pretty happy with the Felpro as all round performers until I lost a pair and had to buy something new and my local tool and small engine repair guy (he is an immigrant Ukrainian named Vlad - I call him 'Vlad the retailer') pointed me at a French brand I'd been unaware of, Bahco. I liked them even betterthan the stand-by Felpros, and as a Christmas treat, decided to move up to one of their ergonomic models to try and delay the onset of pruner's hand (where it get's - almost - too stiff to hold a wineglass). I'll let you know how they turn out.

Will await your review,as well. We also do a lot of pruning of larger branches. We have a smaller version of the one you posted,.....different brand. We could use a larger model, for the same reason of being able to carry it around easily.

Neat thing about that model of Bahco is that you can tailor it to you hand and needs. The site has you measure your hand, select the lever size you need and then there are 3 different cutting sets yoyu can order, ranging from 1/2", through 3/4" to 1 1/4" maximum. I ordered the right lever size and the largest blade sizes. We shall see....

Take a look at this guide I found on a vendor site - very useful to suit your own hand size and requirements.

http://www.peachridge.com/pruning/handp ... pxsize.htm

This is video (for any who might be interested) dealing with the range available. I haven't been able to take the jump to the versions with rotating handles - if anyone has maybe they can comment.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpaVwHK6Bx8#t=32

[Jenise]

I ordered a 10" chef's knife and a 4" paring knife, both in HC steel. Looking forward to getting them!

Might have to try them out.

I ordered a 10" chef's knife and a 4" paring knife, both in HC steel. Looking forward to getting them!

Might have to try them out.

You are welcome to try them. One never knows just how sharp a new knife out of the box is - sometimes they are good and sometimes you need to touch them up. Let me know.

[Jenise]

I'll play with them, then! I did have to unwrap them for border crossing, but they were only minimally sheathed in enough bubble wrap to make sure someone didn't cut themselves fishing around in the styro peanuts that were in the shipping box, which is also just enough for some border agent to see that they're knives so I didn't even presume to unwrap them. They weren't boxed separately. I'd never presume to actually use something that belongs to someone else.

I look forward to your impressions of them!

I love the knife. It is a bit large for my hand because when I am chopping, I put my thumb and pointer finger on the bolster. The butt part of this knife is at my wrist...nothing I cannot handle, however. It makes short work of chopping anything. I went through a bunch of parsley today in no time. It is so sharp, that when I was drying it, my middle finger tip barely touched the knife edge and it was cut and bleeding. Yes! Exactly what I want in a knife. Keeps my knife skills sharp. My ex meat cutter hubby is handling it very carefully....he has lots of scars!