Posted by: tituteo | October 18, 2008

Kitchen Samurai

According to a forum thread that I chanced upon, a kitchen samurai is someone who:-

* loves high quality kitchen knives such as those from Hattori, Katsumi, Kai Shun, Global, Kyocera, Wusthof and Henckels, etc.
* thinks owning good kitchen knives is not only a necessity but an honor of highest caliber.
* spends a good portion of his or hers hard-earn money on kitchen knives.
* insists that a good, razor sharp knife is safer than a blunt one.
* prefers slicing, dicing, paring and chopping than cooking (or both).
* has the habit of keeping all knives in his or hers kitchen razor sharp.
* treasures his or hers knives more than their spouse.
* knows what Rockwell hardness or HRC means (it has got nothing to do with Ken Rockwell or Hard Rock Cafe).
* can differentiate between a forged and a stamped knife.
* understands what this lingual means “made of VG10 core cutting edge forged with 63 layered Nickel Damascus stainless steel blade. VG10 is the newly developed High Carbon (0.95 to1.05%) Molybdenum (0.90 to1.20%) and Vanadium (0.10 to 0.30%) stainless steel plus 1.30 to 1.50% Cobalt added. Rockwell hardness 60 to 61 HRC”.

Right. Before I get labeled as a knife geek, I am really none of the above. Except that ever since my uni days, I’ve known the importance of good knives and the beauty of piercing one through an onion and hearing the crisp sound of it breaking apart.

I used to know nothing about knives. Long as they serve their purpose, can cut through meat and vegetables, I was satisfied. That was until I went knife shopping with a classmate, the ‘chef’ among us who loved to whip up sumptuous home cooked meals for us homesick students. John was practically drooling over some Kai knives and describing to me how ‘powerful’ they are. Seriously, I wasn’t really convinced. Except for the fact that the knives looked too beautiful to be used, they were really too extravagant for something used to chop raw slabs of smelly meat in my eyes. But I have to admit. The brand ‘KAI’ was etched on my mind then. Thank you, John. You must be so proud of me!

Fast forward to many years later, when we were shopping for a travel knife last year (to cut Seth’s food while we travel), I was telling the Man the ‘wonders’ of the Kai knife. And all I could say was, ‘Aiya! The are the best la. Made in Japan knives!’ And lucky for me. Being a non-chef, this was good enough for the Man. And it got etched on his mind that ‘KAI is the best!’.

So today we went knife shopping and there shall be no other brands but KAI. Being the ever indulging husband that he is, the Man graciously declared that I am allowed to choose from the best…. a KAI Shun knife.

And so I am now the proud owner of a Shun Santoku! Holding it in my hands I almost teared. I feel so loved!!! *Beams*

Can’t wait to start chopping!!


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