I use kitchen knives every day

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Peak_Oil

Joined
Nov 6, 2005
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554
Curious about your comments about this. If there is any knife I'm sure to use at least twice a day to improve my life, kitchen knives are at the top of the list. I should really funnel my knife money towards a really great chef's knife and a really great paring knife.

I'm not in construction, i wear out the ass of a suit for a living. There's no reason for me to have a hard use knife. The hardest use I have for a knife is boning out a turkey. I need a really great paring knife.

The best paring knife I've found is the Oneida $6 paring knife. It's awesome! I'd be happy to spend more on a better paring knife, but it would have to be what, three times better for me to spend more money on it.

I have no less than fifteen knives that I have an extremely limited use for. What was I thinking? It's not like I need to baton through wood regularly. I have an axe to bust up my firewood. Yes, I heat my home for my children with wood, and I use a Fiskars splitting axe to do the job.

I cut broccoli and garlic more than I cut wood. I grind coffee beans more than I trim bushes. I have a much better hedge trimmer than coffee grinder. I think it's hard to separate the romanticism of finding the perfect pocket knife (opinel #8) when it could be much more simple to prioritize the utility of daily use tools.

I wonder why I'm so swayed by marketing.
 
You raised a question often overlooked- kitchen knives is also one of most common murder weapons. LOL.
A good kitchen knife settles many cutting needs in a house but most importantly it helps the busiest chefs in the world deliver the food on time and made best presentation in terms of neat slicing/dicing (insert your preferred cutting method).

The Urasuki grind on a knife still amazes me until today. Between a good sushi and a splattered mess, it's that important.
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Opinel paring knives have been great for me. The thin blades slice like crazy and the steel holds and edge forever. Two packs can be found for under $20 shipped.

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I use kitchen knives as equally as my folders really if not more. Last year I got a good set of Kitchen aid knives and they work well just have to resharpen them like any other knife and prevent rust.
 
PEAK-
Kitchen knives are the best things to learn how to improve your sharpening skills. One of the best I have is an old "Martha Stewart" Chef knife, heavy and strong enough for vigorous chopping, triple riveted nice feeling handle, very good Japanese steel blade, that I bought at K-mart for under $10.00. I read a review of chef knives and was very surprised to see than this knife was rated higher than many costing ten times more so when I was at the store I checked it out and bought one. I also have a small Swiss army paring knife that is dynamite and was not expensive.

Spyderco had once sold a couple of very high quality kitchen knives but I think they are now extinct. You might find a deal on used ones if you check the for sale forums.


When I was Wal-Mart the other day I saw a three knife kitchen set, "Paula Deen" brand, that was Japanese stainless and very well made. The price was about $13 for the set. I can't recommend it because I have never used it but it had some very good kitchen knife characteristics, IMHO. You could probably find it online if curious to see the specs.

Here is a good video about kitchen knives that you might enjoy watching.

http://www.marthastewart.com/993554/favorite-kitchen-knives
 
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Opinels are one good choice but I use a Friedrich Dick "ProDynamic" paring knife in my own kitchen.
 
I have owned and operated restaurants for many years. I bought, and still use, French Carbon steel knives, the K Sabatiers. Excellent price, and they are hell for efficient.
These are the three in my knife block now.
 
mr_badexample said:
Opinel paring knives have been great for me. The thin blades slice like crazy and the steel holds and edge forever. Two packs can be found for under $20 shipped.

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I don't have much exp. with kitchen knives but these opinels are great pearing knives for the $15 a PAIR of them costs, even if you have a nice collection already in the kitchen everyone could benefit from one (they're only sold in sets of 2) of these, the quality/dollar is unmatched by anything I know of.
 
Stainless steel only kitchen knives and than once in a while I peel an apple or pear with one of my traditionals.
 
Good post. One should really have a good kitchen knife. It's uncivilized not to.

I have some 3 Henkels knives I picked up over the years: 8" chef's, 7" santoku, 6" utility. I touch them up with mini croc sticks every few days, and they are a pleasure to use.

One thing I like to do is cook with my larger EDC knives. The practice actually paid off when I had to make dinner with a large group with my Svord peasant knife being the only sharp blade in the house. Your Opinel #8 should make a great kitchen knife.
 
I'm suprised at the amount of members here who rely on their EDC knives for prepping their dinner. Even if you're not really into cooking, every knife nut deserves a decent chef knife. It would drive me crazy using my little 3.5" blade to prep with. It's like when you go to someone's house to make dinner and all they have is a crappy Fabriwear.
As important a quality EDC blade is to us, I feel it makes an even bigger difference in the kitchen. But that's what I do for a living, so it really matters to me.
And Big Mike, that's a nice collection there. Here's a few of mine that get used at home, there's more in my locker at work.
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dogstar said:
Good post. One should really have a good kitchen knife. It's uncivilized not to.

I have some 3 Henkels knives I picked up over the years: 8" chef's, 7" santoku, 6" utility. I touch them up with mini croc sticks every few days, and they are a pleasure to use.

One thing I like to do is cook with my larger EDC knives. The practice actually paid off when I had to make dinner with a large group with my Svord peasant knife being the only sharp blade in the house. Your Opinel #8 should make a great kitchen knife.
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Are Henkel's good knives? I have a set of them I got from my buddies ex-wife when they got divorced. How good of a score was it? I've been using them a few years now but only the bigger knives are PE, all the steak knives are those "micro serrations" so I've never been able to sharpen them.
 
Cereal_killer said:
Are Henkel's good knives? I have a set of them I got from my buddies ex-wife when they got divorced. How good of a score was it? I've been using them a few years now but only the bigger knives are PE, all the steak knives are those "micro serrations" so I've never been able to sharpen them.
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Henkel makes top of the line stuff (pretty hard to beat Solingen steel) but also produces lesser quality versions at their offshore factories. The number of stylized figures on the blade will indicate the quality. The German ones have 3 or 4 and the Brazilian jobs only have 2. Myself would dearly love to find some vintage carbon steel versions of these.
 
Mannlicher said:
I have owned and operated restaurants for many years. I bought, and still use, French Carbon steel knives, the K Sabatiers. Excellent price, and they are hell for efficient.
These are the three in my knife block now.
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Those are exquisite! Please tell me someone reputable (such as Sabatier) still makes these out of carbon steel. The integral guard and bolster and dual tapered blade makes for a better balanced and much stronger knife than the currently fashionable Oriental versions.
 
some of mine

No name honyaki yanagiba

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Itinnomon #7 cleaver

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Itinnomon guyto 240mm

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Ioshihide 270mm sujihiki

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Yoshiaki Fujiwara 240mm gyuto

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Cereal_killer said:
Are Henkel's good knives? I have a set of them I got from my buddies ex-wife when they got divorced. How good of a score was it? I've been using them a few years now but only the bigger knives are PE, all the steak knives are those "micro serrations" so I've never been able to sharpen them.
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2 of mine are from Spain; the other is from Germany. They will get dull, but a few swipes on ceramic rods are all I need to keep'em sharp.

To put it another way, I appreciate my Henkels more after my experience last week, when I had to use my Svord Peasant. We were at a vacation cabin, making dinner for 13 folks. There were 3 knives that belonged there; one was 440A and the other two said "China Stainless" on them. It was clear they had not been taken care of and were getting butter knife dull. I relied on my Svord that night, but when I had time later, I tried sharpening these knives up with a small diamond rod I had in my emergency kit. It took the better part of an hour to put some kind of an edge on them. It was not easy. Later, people were using these knives to cut things on ceramic plates. I just had to grin and bear it. I think I'll gift the owners an Accusharp or the like for Christmas.
 
Anybody, who spend some time on the kitchen and do not have half decent Gyuto, have no idea what they are missing.
 
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