oraklet

yippeee! i'm off to buy them!

just found this: http://www.cunillexport.com/produit.asp?nu...m=6504.30&gam=1 i think it looks like a good buy. do you?

i just came across a nice, cheap, medium sized heavy enameled casserole. does it have a place in a well-equipped kitchen?

No no no. The blessings are never to be found in recipes. St. Jacques' or anyone else's. These are the merely the deluded ramblings of the measurer and the mad mutterings of the accountant. Recipes are the Devil's "Little Black Book" of souls that have been lost. The techniques. It's the techniques. Et la methode, n'est pas? i think nigel slater's got it right. he gives you a recipe, and then tells you what is essential to a good result and what is not. and why. makes the reader think.

what made you do it? how did you find it?

if i remember rightly, the handles on furi knives are welded onto the blade, global style, but without the groves - so they might be even more slippery. perhaps rgruby was thinking of using the spine for "smashing" the bones?

that's nice of you, but as i live in denmark...anyway, i should be able to find one near by. i'll try bathing the handles in oil, frequently.

You can ge them at IKEA for less than 20 bucks... real end grain. yes - and though they're not absolutely even, they're much better than most edge-grain. chad, as for dried handles: i've got this huge old sabatier, and the handles have shrunk a bit - du you really think they could be made to "fill out" again? and could a handle with a crack, too?

macrosan, a beautiful post. i hope it will open some eyes. in particular, i find this thought-provoking:

one should be able to find a decent cote de ventoux at that price.

Thanks! I really appreciate it. After your knife skills class, I felt I had to keep up my end of the tag-team . I'm glad the steeling method worked for you. It takes a little getting used to. It took me forever to force myself to slow down and pay attention to my angles. But it's a lot more effective (in my opinion) than the usually-taught method. Chad i actually saw that way of honing first time on some knife site, but always felt uncomfortable with it. then i found out that it worked much better for me if i had the steel at an angle of, say 20 degrees. made it a lot easier to keep the knife at a steady angle. only trouble is that one will have to be pretty sure one holds the steel still. the reason that i found it easier is that the angle is of course much more obvious on the steel than on the knife. you can even do your sharpening in front of a mirror to check if you've got the angle right.

oh, and never allow anything like a plastic bag or a towel to be accidentally left on top of a sharp knife. aïe!

for relatively cheap knives, they're good. the handles are a bit deep, so that your knuckles will hit the cutting board, but you can buy those with a wooden handle, and file it to the desired shape. they sharpen well. they actually make fully forged knives, too, that look good. i think you may find them on the victorinox home page. edit: http://www.victorinox.com/newsite/en/produ...dukte/index.htm /professional knives/chef's cases/page 6, scroll down

ah, yes. though i think there was another that showed how to sharpen along the stone?

on another knife thread there was a link to a very good video clip from a high end japanese knife store. wish i could find it... and thanks for good answers.

pepin suggests that you use a peeler for getting the "planks" for julienning carrots. i never thought this could be done with my peeler, but then my wife bought one that makes thicker "cuts". et voila, much less "waste" than with the knife!

and i really appreciate your effort - as well as the result. tons of valuable information. there's one issue you do not touch on: the edge curvature, and the problem of sharpening past the bolster (if you see what i mean). many are the chef's knives that have been "hollowed", and it does not take much change in the curvature to ruin the chopping performance of a chef's knife. in particular this can be a problem with the heavy-bolstered german knives. it can be caused by sharpening with the knife at a 90º angle to the stone (if you're not extremely carefull, that is), or by an irregular stone (and as you mentioned, they do wear) - or by not filing off a bit of the bolster if you wish to put an alternative angle on your knife. i love the mouse pad trick. i have used sand paper before, but never on a slightly soft surface, and i look forward to trying it. it even has the advantage of being cheap! and then a question: can one sharpen a boning knife on a stone?

thinner knives will make more even cuts (as long as they're not too flexible). perhaps because the thicker knives will meet more resistance on the inside than on the outside of the object you're cutting. doesn't explain malawry's problem, though. edit: bruce, you do mean that a knife sharpened on the right side will veer to the left, don't you?

um - i haven't got a digital camera, so that might prove a little difficult. basically it's got a blade that's closer to the triangular than are the german knives - not because it's been sharpened to that shape, as i believe it had never seen a stone before i bought it for 4$. not much curve on the edge, and i confess i did take off the slightest bit of the edge near the bolster to give it a little more roll. more flexible than most modern chef's knives, and lighter. very easy to sharpen. small crack in handle, which is mounted with a brass ring in the blade end and a ?? in the butt end. knives like this show up occasionally on ebay, though not at 4$... stamped "vrai acier fondu; gf", a dagger, and the smith's name (i think), "guyot". i love that knife, and only use it for light tasks!

i did notice the difference in the menus from 19xx and 1996, but didn't know towers had that much to do with it. interesting.

heh, sure, but one only has to read her menus to see that there's much more to it than that. but i may be missing something?

ahem. i only know a.w. from "culinary artistry" from -96. her comments and menus there strike me as very clever and delicious. but you were joking, of course Of course. That is the standard industry criticism of Waters... why?

ahem. i only know a.w. from "culinary artistry" from -96. her comments and menus there strike me as very clever and delicious. but you were joking, of course

...leave to soak for 3 min., then put in boiling water. worked for my m-i-l's age old sieve which before cleaning served well as a bowl. wouldn't the flame method make the metal too brittle?

a very nice treatise, and great photos. i've got a few minor suggestions: 1) a few weeks ago, i wanted to find out which of my chef's knifes actually served best for what. i found that the monster-size (a 12" old sabatier) was great for chopping parsley, onions etc., cutting iceberg salad and for coarser cuts of potatos, carrots, as well as for splitting large objects. on the other hand, it didn't serve very well for batonnets, juliennes, brunoise etc., and that's where my ancient french 8" came in, because it has a very light blade (it's probably c. 120 years old, and with a rat tail tang). whereas the big knife has a thick blade which almost crushes its way through the object, the light knife really cuts. the second best knife for that (better than the santoku) was my 8" victorinox, which is a cheap knife with a stamped blade. so perhaps it would be good to advice anyone to have 2 chef's knives, one heavy and big, and one that's light? 2) i noticed that your bread knife was long, and that's great. my humble advice would be for one with a slightly curved edge, like on a victorinox. much easier to work with, i think.