Four and More (Infomercial)

In my humble small kitchen, this Chroma 301 santoku is the knife I most often find myself using. It's blade maintains sharpness enough to get one through both episodes of Kill Bill, but I still have a Chantry sharpener at hand for regular blade maintenence. It's easy and it works on everything. I've never much liked the traditional knife steel. It's too easy to get the wrong angle.

I also like a traditional chef's knife, but I prefer a somewhat smaller blade, that being a simple six-inch chef knife. The bolster on the Wustof is thick and safe. Compared to other German cutlery, this style of bolster is much less threatening, even if Messermeister blades are themselves a little harder. If you compare bolsters you see what I mean.

The Chroma" knives I like have a nasty little sharp edge where the bolster would be if these featured ones. Instead these have a little "pearl" that juts from the handle to guard against getting the hand too forward to the blade.

I'm OK with this, but I have my young one use a German knife. They have their own little four-inch chef's knife which they are very proud of, and though I'd prefer a thicker bolster, they wouldn't trade their blade for any other at this time. Radish trimming. Kinda fun, really.

They picked it out at the kitchen store all by themselves, with good advice from the store cooking coaches. My little one sees no need for the Santoku style blade; instead, moving right up to the traditional cleaver, good for big jobs like quartering a chicken or working out the final episodes of the opera Salome.

We decided that knife blocks took up too much precious countertop space, so we have a magnetic knife rack. Looks way cool, and the blades are easier to inspect for cleanliness. I like the way these look stuck up against the wall above the counter, and it's way better than dulling them in a cutlery drawer.

And now back to our regular programming:

How much money has the Iraq war taken from your pockets so far?