David A. Goldfarb

So after using this knife for a couple of days and looking more closely at the handles of all the knives mentioned in this thread, it seems that handle design is an inherent problem with any folding kitchen knife. The handle has to be longer than the blade, and the end of the handle has to protrude, it seems, to below the level of the edge when the knife is open for the knife to be able to fold safely, and that is likely to make the handle heavier than would be the case for a conventional fixed blade santuko or chef's knife. One could drill holes into the handle to make it lighter, but that would make it harder to clean. On the Ryback, I think the black side of the handle is aluminum, and the other side with the frame lock is stainless steel, which is heavy, but has to be for the frame lock to be as sturdy as it needs to be. I sharpened it using my Japanese waterstone (1000/6000), and it takes a nice edge.

A couple more observations-- The height of the blade is 1-7/8 inch as noted in the article linked above. Holding the knife in the most natural way, I'd say you can use an area about 6 inches from the edge of the cutting board, with 1-1/2 inch of space between the heel of the blade and the edge. Of course if you're holding the knife at a high angle, like you would for something like cutting the bone out of a T-bone steak where you're mainly using the tip of the knife, then you don't have to worry about the end of the handle hitting the board. If one is using this as a camp knife or a picnic knife, then a small cutting board would be in order in any case, but for my scenario of cooking at a friend's house or in a vacation condo for a weekend, large board/small knife is not an unlikely situation. For katsuramuki and other kinds of freehand peeling--the size and weight of the handle is a bit of a disadvantage, but maybe one can get used to it. The spine of the knife has an interesting shape. There is kind of a flat spot toward the tip, where you can rest two fingers of your non-dominant hand for rocking the knife. For a blade of this length, this is perfect--definitely a feature to keep in future versions of this knife, and I gather from Wilkins' website, that he's working on an update-- http://www.wilkins-knives.com/start_e.html

The Ryback arrived. I haven't had a chance to make photographs yet, but first impressions-- This is a usable, good sized folding kitchen knife, and it comes in a nicely padded cordura pouch. The edge is comparable to the factory edge a decent German knife, but I've come to like a finer edge, so I'll make it sharper. Fit and finish are very good. There is a belt clip and a hole for a lanyard. I thought the belt clip would be an ergonomic problem, but it isn't. I don't know that I would want to carry a knife I'm using for food on my belt. The blade is 4.5", about 4-3/8 usable cutting edge. Full length from handle to tip is about 10-3/4 inches. When the knife is fully open, it would be very difficult to defeat the frame lock and have the knife accidentally close on you, but do make sure it is fully open and not in an intermediate position where the frame lock hasn't clicked in, because it clicks a confusing detente before it open all the way. The knife rocks well, but the balance is more toward the handle than I like. It's definitely more of a hammer grip than a pinch grip knife, but the flat shape of the handle means you have as much control with a hammer grip on this knife as you would with a pinch grip on a somewhat longer knife, and you can use the whole blade. Notice how the end of the handle curves down. If you try to cut in the middle of a large cutting board, this part of the handle bangs on the cutting surface before the edge completes its arc, so you still have to cut toward the edge of the board, but since you can use a hammer grip, you've got a little breathing room.

The power rating is related to the amount of dough it can handle, and in general with a KitchenAid, if the machine can use the spiral dough hook, it can handle more dough. Those ratings in terms of cups of flour depend to a certain degree on the flour and type of dough. For instance, a pasta or bagel dough is heavier than a typical white bread dough, so if the machine can handle a medium weight dough with 6 cups of flour, it may only handle a heavier dough with 4 cups of flour before it shuts down due to overheating (it happened a few times with my previous KitchenAid) or before the gears strip, if the mixer doesn't have a cutoff switch. Then the larger motor will come with a heavier gear system and spiral dough hook, so it's a package. There are other very nice mixers out there, some better if you only want to use it as a mixer, but the attraction of the KitchenAid for me is the range of accessories produced over a long period of time.

For a few years I had a Professional 5 quart KitchenAid ("Professional" in that era meant it had a cutoff switch that killed the motor before it overheated, as opposed to "Commercial" which referred to the NSF rated 5-quart model, which also had that feature) with something like a 350 watt motor that I picked up second hand from a friend who had it for several years and decided she didn't use it often enough to justify the counter space, and it was okay, but it started making noises I didn't like, and wasn't great at handling tasks like heavy sausage grinding, so I sold it and bought a factory refurbished "Heavy Duty" 5 quart KitchenAid that I've been very happy with. The smaller one probably had plastic gears, and the "Heavy Duty" models have metal gears and a 475 watt motor with 10 real speeds and "slow start," which prevents the famous KitchenAid "flour shower" that you sometimes get, even when starting on a low speed. You can pick these things up for $200-- http://www.shopkitchenaid.com/product_detail.asp?HDR=outlet&T1=KTA+RKG25H0XWH Generally, KitchenAid mixers of recent vintage that have the spiral dough hook, instead of the older style G-shaped dough hook, have metal gearing. Older mixers from when KitchenAid was owned by Hobart have metal gearing as well as the G-shaped dough hook. KitchenAid warns against using a spiral dough hook, incidentally, on a mixer that didn't come with one.

I ordered the Ryback. Price with DHL shipping from Germany to New York, which excludes VAT, was $98.18. I'll report back when it arrives.

Thanks for measuring. Just looking at how wide various blades that I have are and how I hold them, I may be leaning toward the Ryback again. 32mm may be manageable, but given the width and shape of the handle, it could also be a bit awkward for me. I prefer a wider wooden handle like you've got on the Maruyoshi to a thin flat metal handle like the Ryback has, but with such a short knife, I think I'd rather have the knuckle clearance to be able to use the whole blade.

If you're happy with your purchase, I'm happy for you. I can't resist saying that that's a lot of dough for a knife that, freehand aside, will restrict you to the 4" strip round the edge of your cutting board. Where you gonna put your fingers, for one thing ? Good point. Foodietopo, how wide is the Maruyoshi blade? The Ryback blade is 1-7/8" wide, which is actually wider than my Wusthof santoku. I generally use a hammer grip with most knives, but for certain techniques and for knives that don't have enough knuckle clearance, I sometimes switch to a pinch grip. I suspect the Maruyoshi would be more of a pinch grip knife.

Thank you for the report! It's hard to get much of a sense for these things just from a catalogue photo. I asked japanwoodworker to let me know when they have it in stock.

I remember taking a Mexican friend to a restaurant called "The Heights" on Broadway not far from Columbia University, where they serve something called "Mexican Timpano," which is kind of like a lasagna made if I remember correctly with beef or chicken, cheese, and rice and maybe mole poblano layered between brightly colored vegetable tortillas, with refried beans and guacamole on the side, and he said, "no one makes this in Mexico, but everything in here is Mexican" and he liked it, so it seemed to be in essence authentic despite its inauthenticity.

Thanks for posting the pictures. japanwoodworker says their price is $250, but with shipping and customs from Japan, and wire transfer and foreign exchange fees, that may not be too different from ordering direct. They sent me this screenshot from their stock control software. It's not on their website yet, but they have the knife on order--

It's hard to recognize innovation without a sense of what is authentic or at least traditional, but I would always think of "authentic" as "authentic to a certain time and place, and maybe a person." Demi glace with tomatoes is authentic to Escoffier, but was probably an innovation on his part, since it's not authentic to Ranhofer. One of the interesting things one can discover by striving at least occasionally for authenticity to some particular moment is what it is that all those degradations of food in the course of history were trying to replace. Like if you reduced a can of beef stock with a can of Campbell's Tomato Soup, you would get something not unlike Escoffier's demi glace, but it would be saltier and a lot less subtle than a version made by reducing lots of homemade beef and veal stock with tomatoes and a little roux. Ranhofer had so many creamy sauces with mushrooms and mushroom essence where you might imagine a mid-twentieth-century home cook substituting cream of mushroom soup, though they would lose a good deal of the complexity of a sauce made with three kinds of stock.

That's about $165 USD. I'll be very interested to hear your report!

Maruyoshi says their U.S. representative is japanwoodworker.com . I've e-mailed them, and I'll report back. They do not show these knives on their website or in the online version of their print catalogue.

Thanks for the pointer to Maruyoshi. I sent them an e-mail.

Here's the NYC law- http://codes.lp.findlaw.com/nycode/ADC/10/1/10-133 Section D leaves a lot open to the interpretation of the officer and common sense. A culinary student or cook can obviously carry a knife longer than 4". Someone going to or coming from a picnic or fishing can carry an appropriate knife. The knife should be concealed. Switchblades and gravity knives are not permitted, as I understand it, but there is probably an exception if you happen to be missing an arm.

I've handled an Opinel, and it does offer a lot of bang for the buck, but it's not exactly what I'm looking for. Interesting point about NYC knife laws. Of course one sees culinary students and professionals walking around the city with their knife rolls all the time. I know someone who was stopped by a police officer for carrying a folding knife that he used for his work in a sheath on his belt, I think because he was walking down a block where a crime had just taken place, and the police officer recommended actually that he just keep it in his bag (i.e., he advised him to conceal it), to avoid attracting attention or intimidating people. I stopped carrying a Swiss Army Knife some time after 9/11 when I had it temporary confiscated at a court house when I was on jury duty. They gave it back at the end of the day, but I didn't want to deal with the hassle of checking it and picking it up whenever I had to enter a secure building.

More on the Ryback and its frame lock here-- http://www.tactical-life.com/online/tactical-knives/ryback-folding-camp-chef/

Here's the scenario--you're going to someone's house where you're likely to be pressed into service in the kitchen, and you know they don't have a decent knife in the house, but you don't want to be so presumptuous or it's otherwise inconvenient to carry a knife roll. Or maybe you're going away for a weekend where you'll be cooking and you want to travel light. Of course one can always make do with what's there, but maybe there's an alternative. Does anyone have a folding knife they particularly like for culinary tasks? I'm imagining something with a blade on the order of 4-5", sharp, maybe even rockable like a chef's knife. Hunting around on the internet, I found these two folding santuko-style knives-- http://www.cheruskermesser.de/epages/62337717.sf/en_US/?ViewObjectID=1550629&Currency=USD http://www.agrussell.com/ag-russell-mini-folding-hocho/p/AG-136VG10/ There's also a larger Laguiole "Wine Merchant's Knife"-- http://www.thebestthings.com/knives/sabatier_laguiole.htm Anyone have any experience with any of these or maybe others? Of these three I'm leaning toward the Ryback.

Less stuff. Commercial kitchens tend not to have a lot of extra stuff, because it costs money and has to be kept clean and maintained. I've got a lot of stuff, but I sometimes wonder if I might not be better off with less of it.

My thoughts exactly.

I generally prefer thin.

My father bought a set of Emerilware once to round out what was otherwise an ample collection of stuff, and I've used it a bit. It seemed okay for the price, and as he was losing strength due to a progressive neuromuscular condition, he may have been looking for something that was light weight while still being pretty good, but if I wanted stainless, I'd rather have two or three good pieces of Sitram Catering than a ten piece set of lighter cookware.

The key to getting good color without pre-blanching is knowing when to stop and being able to serve the vegetables right away, which is a lot easier at home, where presumably everyone at the table is eating the same thing, and plates aren't waiting at the pass, and there isn't a large distance between kitchen and table.

Don't some European cities have this? I know I've seen it when traveling. I have an iPhone/iPod Touch app called "NYC Restaurant Scrutinizer" that lets you look up NYC restaurant inspection reports.