tell me about your knives!

dandykins · **Joined:** Fri Oct 22, 2010 9:03 pm **Posts:** 349

SuperDave wrote:

Funny I was just thinking about my knife sadness this morning and how I wanted to throw it out to the PPK to be a shoulder.
My Knives have always been a throw together set. I have no clue who made them maybe faberware or something. except for my Boning knife that thing is a professional one with a white handle that cuts awesome and was super cheap (last NYD I almost cut my finger off with the thing)
The knives were//are great I get them sharpened once a year, use the steel on them no problems except for the santoku that thing goes dull super fast..
BUT.. My knife Block broke just fell apart so for fathers day I received a new set of Ginsu knives with a block (i only needed the block but got all the knives also)
got a Chefs knife a Carver, a Paring knife what seem to be like a steak knife (all with serrated edges and the famous ginsu never needs sharpening) the set also came with a Santoku (not serrated) and Scissors. So into the drawer go my old knives out come the new one (except the boning knife since that is kinda specialized.)
so six months of use later.. The santoku is awesome holds an edge if is seems a little off I hit it with the steel goes nicely through a tomato.
The rest of them....
The carver well... Um I have used 2-3 times Eh... the boning knife I have is better
the paring knife and steak knife thing when I need knives of that size I go grab them. they do the trick.
the Chef's knife... well.. It tears through winter squash if I am careful not to smash the blade on the cutting board but try to chop herbs with it.. no dice..
Tomatos... nope Onions.. well it seems like force is doing the cutting not the blade..
They said they would replace them for 3 bucks a knife since I did not have a receipt.
I use the steel on the chefs knife and it doesn't seem to do trick. maybe since it is serrated..
my dilemma is I feel bad going for my old chefs knife when my kids got me this pretty set of knives and they are nice looking and they match the kitchen..

so yeah I might say stay away from the Ginsu..
problem being "they never need sharpening"

That really sucks. A good knife makes life so much easier in the kitchen, and it is such a disappointment to put so much time and money into selecting a knife set and have it fail.

Relatedly - I thought serrated knives couldn't be sharpened with a honing steel or a sharpening stone. Has anyone else heard that?

elouise · **Posted:** Fri Dec 03, 2010 2:52 pm

I have a set of Henckels and I love love love them.

queenofpainting · **Posted:** Fri Dec 03, 2010 3:03 pm

Rach*n wrote:

I think my husband picked calphalon knives. Having decent knives has made cooking awesome, definitely save up and pick our a decent knife you like. And if you can, try it out in the store before you buy it to make sure it feels good to you. That's all the advice I have.

Both of those sound good. No internet knife purchases. Check.

TinLychee · **Posted:** Thu Jan 17, 2013 6:19 pm

I have a cobbled-together set, mostly KitchenAid:

Which I think is a good beginner's set, for me at least. At any rate, I'm contributing to the thread because I'm wondering what you guys use for tomatoes. Any recommendations?

Peri · **Joined:** Fri Feb 18, 2011 12:24 pm **Posts:** 468

My aunt gave me a small Victorinox paring knife and it's the best knife I have. I had a can opener mishap and used the knife to cut the rest of the can of food open and it still cuts like it's brand new. I want to get a whole set. This one has a red handle so I can spot it easily in a drawer full of cutlery.

eta: Also it's easy to cut your fingers on these, they are very sharp.

interrobang?! · **Posted:** Thu Jan 17, 2013 7:29 pm

I own 3 knives. The most expensive was £3.99. It cuts things. It's great.

Jonny Guitar · **Joined:** Tue Apr 24, 2012 1:17 am **Posts:** 308

I have a lot of sets of knives of varying quality accumulated from my chef days: you need lots of specialty animal cutting ones -- they don't get used at all anymore at all. 95% of the time I use an 8" Chef Knife and 5% gets split between a 4" paring knife, 6" utility knife and a 3" turning knife or bread knife.

My favorite brand is Goldhamster First Class (except for the big chef knives because they are too heavy), but they are expensive and kinda of luxury. I bought a set many years ago as a 1 year no smoking reward for myself otherwise I wouldn't of dropped the cash on them. Any knife that holds its edge and is ergonomically comfy is fine with me.

rhelune · **Posted:** Thu Jan 17, 2013 11:52 pm

I use this one for tomatoes:

http://www1.tescoma.com/de/scripts/kata ... &id=863018

I have this chef's knife:
http://www2.zwilling.com/en-DK/Product- ... e--63.html

and several very cheap knives.

couroupita · **Posted:** Fri Jan 18, 2013 12:07 am

TinLychee wrote:

Which I think is a good beginner's set, for me at least. At any rate, I'm contributing to the thread because I'm wondering what you guys use for tomatoes. Any recommendations?

The best advice I ever got was from a vegan chef who said as a vegan you only really need one knife. If it's properly sharpened, it should cut tomatoes just fine. In fact, when I start sawing at tomatoes that's how I know my knife needs a tune up (I have a Spiderco tri-angle sharpener and it's amazing). I used to use a serrated knife for soft fruits and veggies until I realized that a sharpened knife should cut just about anything.

I bought my chef's knife from a Japanese tool place (it's called Hida Tool, recommended by my chef friend). I also got a smaller utility knife from there mostly because I liked the purple wood handle. Those were kind of pricey (but they were a bday gift, so I was encouraged to splurge :-D). The only problem with them is because they're Japanese they are really thin blades and dull faster than I'd like. I also wanted to just get a cheaper knife for my parter so I got him a Victorinox chef's knife off amazon for $25, which was recommended by the America's Test Kitchen folks. It's great but I think it's a 10" and is a little unwieldy. Oh yeah, and I have a bread knife but it is a cheap-o one from a thrift store.

Here's a pic of the three. Sorry for the poor quality, my kitchen light is terrible!

j-dub · **Posted:** Fri Jan 18, 2013 12:30 am

elouise wrote:

I have a set of Henckels and I love love love them.

This.

I would save them in a fire over anything and almost anyone else.

Pyewacket · **Joined:** Sat Sep 15, 2012 7:11 pm **Posts:** 460

We have some Shun Classics that get quite a bit of use, but I do love my MAC MTH-80.

Freetahtah · **Posted:** Sat Jan 19, 2013 12:40 am

I got this set for Christmas. They were like $89 a month or so ago, so if you're considering them, it might be worthwhile to see if they drop in price like that again. That being said, I think these are probably worth the $150 they're charging for them now. The knives are super sharp, full tang and forged. It's a nice, diverse set of knives. You don't NEED all of those types of knives, given, but it's nice. Consumer Reports ranked these like #3 or 4 and everything else around that in their list was in the $300+ range. So they're a good value. I can't speak to how well they hold an edge over time, but I don't anticipate that these will wear dramatically quicker than any other knife would. I just know that after a couple of weeks of use, they're still slicing slivers off of the kitchen sponges accidentally during cleaning... Haha.

Veggiebeat · **Posted:** Sat Jan 19, 2013 2:38 am

I am a big Wusthof fan. I have a 6-inch chef's knife that I use for almost everything. I also have one of their bread knives, which works incredibly well, as well as a pairing knife handed down to me from my grandmother. (If you take good care of a nice knife it can outlive you!) I also bought a lower-end Wusthof combo pack of kitchen shears and a cheap pairing knife, which are nice to have when I don't want to use my good knives. I get my knives serviced by a guy who uses a foot pedal powered sharpener. He charges by the inch and a perk of veganism is only needing to take one or two smaller knives in, while others are taking in large collections of long knives.

Paloma · **Joined:** Wed Jan 18, 2012 4:25 am **Posts:** 1030

I bought a Wusthof 20 cm chef's knife a couple of months ago. It was love at first sight and we're inseparable.

(I even bring it along when I'm cooking for someone at their place. Also, I've been thinking about getting it tattood on my leg, to compliment my other utensils tattoo.)

vijita · **Posted:** Sat Jan 19, 2013 11:39 am

My boyfriend bought me a gorgeous Santoku for my birthday after I lamented not picking a great knife up in Japan. Seriously, I HATE spending more money than necessary on stuff but this was like, the best investment ever.

Norelle · **Joined:** Fri Nov 25, 2011 4:29 pm **Posts:** 262

I'm a wusthof JUNKIE.

I know you don't need a LOT of knives, but i love their knives so much i want one in every size and style.

I have an 8 inch santoku, a 6 inch chef's knife, a paring knife and the longest bread knife i've ever seen.

My mother assured me that when she quit working at Williams-Sonoma on her last day she bought me a "few more christmas and birthday gifts" hehehe.

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