— Natoshia Woodcock

So when it comes to knives so, you know as a mentioned early in today's program, I encourage everyone to add at least one knife that is of pretty robust quality. Okay to your knife get really all you need is one. Okay, and you know if I for a lot of people ask about sort of a good entry point and a good value in my opinion Is the Victorinox brand? Fibrox line of Cutlery and they have Chef's knives in different sizes meaning the blade length. and you know an eight inch chef's knife is pretty common for home use, you know, if that feels Well, if it feels too big two things come to mind one is to just give it a try and try to get used to it because it really is a nice all-purpose size. But if it really is a big and uncomfortable for you, then you can consider a smaller size. Let's say a seven inch blade which is Quite a bit shorter and it has a very different feel to it. There are shorter chefs knives six inch and I've seen five inch chefs knives. Although I generally don't recommend night Chef's knives that small it. They just don't cover the real estate The Cutting Board space efficiently during food prep. So I do recommend an eight inch maybe as short as a seven a lot of folks in higher volume settings. We'll use larger Chef nice. But anyway, if you look at a Victorinox fibrox something in the range of an eight inch chef's knife. I think they go for probably 60 dollars or so and it provides a very nice value in terms of the the metal of the blade is soft enough that it's easy enough to to sharpen into maintain. Yeah, it's hard enough that it Hold The Cutting Edge a reasonably long time. Okay now back to your questions here Natasha in terms of the maintenance of that knife daily maintenance should include the steel. Okay that that just that Rod that comes with a Cutlery kid. You can buy them separately of course, but that is used to keep The Cutting Edge. Aligned? Okay, and so if we look at, you know a blade straight on can we look at the The Cutting Edge after we use it a few times it starts to roll over. And when we apply it to the steel what we're doing what we should be doing is straightening that up. Okay, if it rolls over then the knife is going to lose it sharpness and it's Cutting Edge and it's gonna feel dull but we're not we don't call it dull just yet. In other words. It doesn't need to be sharpened on a stone or on a knife sharpener. It just needs to be put on the steel to be aligned again. And you should steal your knife. Probably once a day, you know is adequate for most home Cooks. If you're producing a lot of volume of food, you know, like in a in a restaurant kitchen, then you might steal your knife multiple times a day. Okay and Let me share a couple things about using a steel. Okay, a very often when we see a chef on TV as they're looking at the camera and they're holding the steel in one hand and their knife in the other. They're just sort of doing this real fast, and then they get down and they start cutting. That's not the best way to do that in my opinion for most people most the time meaning that it's important that we straighten up The Cutting Edge. And in order to know that The Cutting Edge is sharp after we apply it to the steel. We need to take a few seconds and run our thumb or our finger across the blades or you know perpendicular to The Cutting Edge in order to it and we do that on in both directions in order to feel how even or how aligned The Cutting Edge is so in other words, you can apply the knife to the steel and it can get straighter but still not be straight. Okay, or you can apply the knife to the steel and even bend it the other way. So it's important that we take a few seconds and feel right with our our thumb very very often running perpendicular to the blade to see that or to feel that the drag is even On both sides. Okay, if it's uneven you're going to feel more drag this way and it's going to feel smooth in this direction. But once we straighten that up, it'll feel even from both directions. That's what we want. Okay in terms of daily maintenance of the knife. When using the steel, okay now after some time has passed. The blade will actually wear down. Okay, and that's when we say yeah, this knife has gotten dull and I need to sharpen it and you can either learn to do it yourself or you can send it out to a knife sharpener. Okay, and you can do it yourself using an electric knife sharpener or if you want the challenge of learning how to use wet Stones. Then you can acquire a set of two or three wet stones and then go through the the learning curve of using a set of wet stones to maintain your knives. Okay. Now a word of caution regarding sending your knives out to professional knife sharpeners. Okay. There are a lot of different folks out there in terms of skill level. and there are certainly some really good ones out there and there are also some folks out there that shouldn't be in the business and some of the results that I've seen. You know, I've seen knives that were damaged. They were grounded down. So heavily that it indicated. It was it was equivalent to probably I'm not kidding 50 years worth of use and this was because the knife was given to somebody who really didn't know how to use a sharpening equipment and just ground it down too much. And so before you choose a professional check their references, you know, ask around and to find, you know, somebody that you will be able to trust. Okay, and so kind of a long answer to your quick questions here Natasha, but I hope that helps regarding the tips from bending and breaking off. A couple things come to mind. You know number one if you acquire or are using a you know what I'm Calling a fairly robust quality knife. The tips are not going to bend at least not very easy not in routine cutting. Okay, they're not going to break off and less they have been dropped or really banged on something. I've seen tips break. I agree with that. It does happen. And if it does happen, you can grind them that you can grind the blade down in order to reestablish a tip. But you know, the other thing is Please do not use your knife your chef knife to to poke at things or to pry open things or to in lieu of a screwdriver or you know, only use it to cut food. Now the exception okay is and this is totally up to you. Okay? I'm not suggesting you do this. But if you've got a heavy knife. Um and down here by the handle. This is called the heel. Um, sometimes the heel is very heavy and that is sometimes used. To open up cans if you don't have a can opener or or to break open nuts, if you know nothing else works and and so the heel of a knife can be used for some other things. Keep in mind. It's gonna take a little bit of abuse and not look so pretty. So if you've got a knife that you really, you know want to to maintain a pristine condition don't use it to open up a can but you know, otherwise certainly don't use the tip to do anything else, you know, besides just Rocking the knife back and forth as you slice. Okay. Thank you.

https://www.victorinox.com/us/en/collection/cut-collection/cutlery_collection_CUT-C001