FoodBanter.com - View Single Post - Cutlery choices-need help making up my mind

(Doug Freyburger) writes:
> My main advice for buying good knives: Don't even look at sets.
> When you first start out, buy a set that's reasonably cheap.
> use it for a while. Then once per year look at your old set and
> see which one is the most worn. Go out and buy ONE knife of
> that type and get the best one you can.

Good advice. I did pretty much the same thing, starting out with a
fairly cheap Forschner set of knives (and some hand-me-downs), and
have gradually replaced most all of the knives, carefully shopping
each time

These days I have a bunch of knive, but only a few that see regular
use and hang on the magnetic strip in the kitchen:

7" Wustof Santoku (by far my most used blade)
10" by 2" Wustof Chef's Knife
9" by 1" Warren Cutlery Utility knife (softer steel than the
Santokus, so it sharpens much better, but doesn't keep an
edge as long, so this is used for when I want a smaller knife,
or need a *really* sharp one)
2 Wushof Spear Paring Knives

I also have a handful of specialty knives that rarely come out of the
drawer, but are useful enough to keep around:

A no-name micro-serated bread knife I bought for $4.99 at Target that
is, oddly, the best bread knife I've used
A Japanese tako hiki bought by my father while serving in Vietnam.
Essential for working with fish.
A 10" carving knife for when I have to do serious damage to a large
roast
A tomato knife, for slicing overripe tomatoes (although the santoku
does a good job as well)

--
Richard W Kaszeta

http://www.kaszeta.org/rich