Making the Chef

I have no hair on my left forearm

There's nothing like the feeling of a sharp knife. And I mean sharp, wicked sharp, so sharp "I could slit someone's throat and they wouldn't even feel it" sharp.

How sharp is that? So sharp that you can slice through paper, no problem. So sharp that you easily go through the skin of a tomato. So sharp that when you run your fingers over the blade, you can feel the blade bounce over the small ridges in your fingertips. That sharp.

So how do you get a knife that sharp?

Well, you don't just rub it up and down that long, round bar of metal that came with your knife block. See, that's not a "knife sharpener" as some folks call it. That's your steel. It's used to hone your blade, to bring it back to true.

Why hone?

Your knife, though made of steel, is not particularly hard. In fact, after just a little bit of use, the metal begins to bend. So what looked like a nice, sharp V becomes a V that's a little bent to one side or another. You can reduce this by buying a knife made with a hard alloy (like cooking, even steel for knives comes in recipes), but in the end, all steel knives will need to be honed. Basically you make passes on the steel, alternating the sides of the blade against the steel while holding it at a 22 degree angle to the steel. You'll soon bring it back to true.

But eventually, no amount of honing will help. Now you need to sharpen. Sharpening involves the same basic motion as honing, moving your knife at a 22 degree angle against a surface, but in this case the surface is usually a whetstone. I prefer a three grit stone (superfine, fine, coarse) because of the control it offers. You usually don't have to use the coarse grit ... that's for severe situations. Usually a few minutes on the fine, then superfine, brings the knife back to a razor-sharp edge.

And I do mean razor sharp. The way I test my knife's sharpness? I shave my left forearm.

posted by LindyChef @ 6:53 PM