Question
Sue Michaels
Is there a way to cut celery and have all the pieces separate without de-stringing? I'm using a chef's knife, cutting with the celery rib up on a wooden cutting board. Maybe my knife is too dull?
Answer
So this is an interesting, uh, question I'm trying to, um, envision here. So in terms of the positioning of the celery rib up, I'm not sure what up is, but let's say that the rounded side, okay, is facing up and you've got your rib on your, your board cutting through that, if you're making it all the way through to the cutting board, should cut through all of, uh, the strings, you know, all the fibers of your celery. Um, if not, then it sounds like you may not be cutting all the way through the celery. And if that's difficult to, to do, then I would say definitely your knife is dull. And, um, I mean, otherwise it's, it should be very easy to cut through your salary. So, um, uh, in this case, it, it sounds like your knife, um, is, doesn't need, um, honing on your daily maintenance, uh, honing rod instead, uh, it needs to actually be sharpened. And you can use, um, you know, uh, any type of sharpener out there. Sounds like any sharpener is gonna be better than you know, than what you have, uh, right now. Um, in other words, you can use, uh, a simple mechanical sharpener, you know, where you pull the blade through, um, you know, a couple of different v notches. One is coarse and one is fine. Um, you can buy this sort of a device that's electric, um, that, um, uh, can do a pretty good job. You can also learn to use, uh, a wet stone, and really it's gonna be, you know, two or two or three wet stones. Uh, in order to go through the stages of, of sharpening. There is a learning curve, uh, when using a, a, a wet stone, however, takes some time and, uh, takes, uh, a fair amount of practice to, to get to the point where you can hit all the angles and, and do things, uh, as they need to be. Um, the other choice is to send your knife out to a sharpener. And, uh, if you choose that route, um, you know, keep in mind that they charge by the inch, you know, it's, um, uh, it might be a couple dollars a an inch, give or take a little bit. And, uh, I'll, I'll throw out also a word of caution. I would recommend that you talk to, uh, or try to get to, uh, get a, uh, a word of mouth recommendation because, um, um, I have seen results, um, of these professional sharpeners, um, you know, that use these, um, grinding wheels to very quickly sharpen your blade. They, uh, are not so skilled themselves, and I've seen knives that have been really grounded down, and it, it's equivalent to, I'm not kidding you, probably 50 years of use, um, on the grinding job, you know, in the course of five minutes, um, when improperly done. So, um, try to get, uh, a word of mouth recommendation for someone that is skilled in sharpening knives.
