Put my baby to the grind wheel.

All this knife talk has made me really sit down and think about what it is that I truly cherish about my closest kitchen friend.

My Henckel Santoku and I have been working side by side for almost three years now and I have to be honest, I don't know what I would do without her. She's like a good wife, loyal and trusting; I respect her, and she reciprocates.



I had all my knives sharpened today but I noticed myself especially concerned when the man doing the sharpening put my baby to the grind wheel. While all the other knives, about fifteen in total, we’re being ground down, buffed, and polished, I continued to work diligently in my kitchen, my mind wandering the vast culinary shadows; and yet when my Santoku was next to be revived, I couldn’t help but sit down and watch, head perched in my hands, refusing to take my eyes off her for a second. It was then that I realized how much this knife really meant to me.

It is true that in a kitchen you never touch another man’s knife. Anthony Bourdain said it best in his book Kitchen Confidential- “Don’t touch my dick, don’t touch my knife”. We build a comfort level with our favorite knives, and that comfort must never be breached.

After the first week of owning my Santoku, and after much prodding, I allowed a handful of people to use her under close watch. Out of those five, three of them cut themselves bad enough to require medical treatment, one of them losing the tip of his index finger. Yet with the thousands of times we have worked together, she has not so much as nipped at me. She knows where she belongs, as an extension of my arm, and nestled softly in the calluses of my index finger and thumb.

Thank you, dear friend. You may be a little banged up, but you’re still my favorite knife in the case.