For most daily needs: chef's knife, pairing knife, serated/bread knife. Possibly useful 'extras': kitchen shears, petty/utility, boning, slicing/carving. They do not recommend sets.
Kitchen shears but with a 4 ft chain to keep them near the sink to wash them, preventing so family stops taking them into other rooms and using to open shipping packing, cutting clothing tags, etc.
I consider good shears to be a daily requirement (they double as random available scissors as well). Specialty knives are really only worth it if you use it for its intended purpose at least once a week. We do have two chef knives as it allows simultaneous work to be done with my spouse, though.
More important is learning proper knife skills, including maintenance and sharpening. Even the best knives need to be taken care of.
The nice thing about these affordable but still good quality knives is that I can simply use them or be rough with them and it's all good. They sharpen up nicely and I don't have to baby them (right in the dishwasher they go, that's right, the dishwasher).
They also have an excellent book, covering both the subject matter (knives and sharpening) and how the company came to be.
Somewhat similar to the book of the Blue Bottle founder on coffee and his company path. Both are basically, as the GP remarked, are glimpses into other people's passion and deep fascination with a certain subject. Fantastic reads IMO.
* In fact, let me add two more books - Ivan Ramen and Tartine Bread. Similar introductions into lives of people and their obsessions with a specific subject.
The swipe against IKEA at the end seems out of place. In my experience IKEA knives have decent materials, design, and build quality despite the low price point. Maybe this is an artifact of the author's focus on resale value? IKEA knives have a low initial acquisition cost which contributes to extremely low resale prices, but they seem to function well and much better than Forgecraft knives.
Agreed! I have had an IKEA Slitbar Santoku since 2014, it's been abused (even tossed in the dishwasher a couple of time because I didn't value it at the time) and it has outlasted most of my other knives. Not to mention, it's my preferred knife when I pull out my drawer.
So much so, that I went out of my way to get the longer chef knife/gyuto version of it off eBay last year! It's freaking fantastic! They're both well maintained now, honed often and my two go-to knives over a wusthof and bunch of Misen knives
No kidding. Most of our knifes are the same IKEA ones we bought fifteen years ago. Honing steel, whetstone and the occasional coat of oil for the wood part of the handle and they just last. I can understand the brand might dilute the resale value because IKEA tends to have a broad range of quality/cost in the line-up.
Ikea is very heavily a “value for money” company in my eyes. Their cheapest furniture in each category is basically pressed sawmill garbage but it will withstand everything but moving. If you move up in price the stuff actually gets better, not just fancier.
My shop is next to the flea market described in the article, I’m really surprised that so many people that live in sf don’t know about it. It’s a really interesting way to spend an hour, and you see a really broad swath of San Francisco residents. plenty of vinyl, other collectibles, hand tools, antiques, ‘antiques’, ephemera from the 70s, strange old electronics, etc. alemeny near bayshore at the farmers market. Every Sunday, pretty much over by noon
I haven't been there in (way) too long, but there used to be a great pierogi vendor -- so even on cold rainy mornings (too common) you'd at least get some warm delicious breakfast.
i also find, with the arrival of catawiki (more a european market?), nice products for regular/normal prices seems hard to come by nowadays. Our "local" online market (marktplaats.nl) is therefore losing its value, local (town/neighborhood) (whats)app groups seem to somewhat take over this roll within the digital space.
OP's writing is nice, but he is de facto a scalper looking for the maximum amount of arbitrage. There's enough of them, like mentioned in the article, that they'll pick any flea market or secondhand store clean off diamonds in the rough before you as a regular guy really get a chance to find any.
What they're doing isn't illegal or forbidden, but it has completely destroyed the spirit of flea markets and secondhand stores as quaint places. And in response to becoming as hypercapitalist as the rest of society, a large contingent of people on flea markets has started to offer whole tables stuffed with cheap AliExpress / Temu crap. Or AI art being sold as "handmade".
The enthusiast offering artisanal coffee or lemonade or cinnamon rolls from his stall or food truck has quadrupled his prices, because if everyone else is gouging the visitor, why shouldn't he?
The same goes for secondhand clothing stores. They're wise to the scalpers looking to flip stuff on Vinted or whatever, so they have also doubled or even tripled their prices. It's an open secret that a lot of stores let the girls working there have a first lookover of whatever comes in.
I had a hell of a time buying a new whetstone for my kitchen knives recently. I didn't want to buy online and I also didn't want to get ripped off. Walmart and Target had nothing but those shitty little widgets you pull a knife through to fuck it up. Home Despot and Lowes only had those and also bizarre sharpening contraptions that included wetstones but also other nonsense to justify bumping the price to north of $50. I finally found what I was looking for, just a regular whetstone with no bells and whistles, for about $3 at harbor freight.
My conclusion is that very few normies care about edge quality and most of those that do are making some sort of hobby out of it and want to buy something excessively fancy. See also Japanese knives; I'm sure they're very nice but two minutes with a whetstone will get any shitty piece of metal sharp enough to cut some chicken. There's no reason to overthink this stuff.
You need to look at professional chefs supply for stuff like this, not Walmart or Amazon.
If there's a local community college or trade school with a culinary program, they might sell stuff like this or at least be able to direct you to suppliers.
All I wanted was a flat rock though, not some expensive specialty thing. I've concluded there is no longer any market for simple practical things like that; the market got bifurcated between people who want some expensive bit of hobby kit and people who don't care about sharp knives at all.
My no-frills set of two large whetstones (4 grades) cost me north of $70 in a pro restaurant store like 20 years ago. They are still in a good shape, and can make my knives razor-sharp with little effort. Even the knife I bought for $5 in a local supermarket.
Curious what your techniques are to keep the angle consistent. I've been sharpening manually by always using the same thumb position under the blade but there is always a little wiggle that bugs me.
I've tried simple whetstones, and haven't yet got the knack of not dulling knives on it. The bizarre sharpening contraptions take the knack out of it, same as the pull-through knife mutilators. It may not be the best, but it is better than it was. Unlike a whetstone where you may very well end up with a knife duller than when you started, if you don't have the knack for keeping an angle or removing the burr or any number of other ways to mess up.
I sharpen my kitchen knives the same way I sharpen my lawnmower blades: out front on the curb (mine is concrete). Grind until it's sharp. Once I was out-of-pocket but luckily my host had a rock garden.
Normies DO care about edge quality but they DON'T care about fiddling with fancy "whetstones" and "diamond sharpeners" and such. Sharpen it, clean with soap and water, dry and burn it (to remove the rabies and typhus) and wipe it down with olive oil, mmmmm!
no need to overthink is the truth
I make a wide assortment of edge tools and sharpen them,including damascus, and regularly sharpen whatever is dull, drill bits, lathe tools, planer blades, etc etc, by hand or with power equipment.
And in moments of need, like not having a long enough wood bit, I have hand ground a long bolt, into a wood bit, no thinking, just doing.
Readit News
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=st6LggwoL_4
* https://www.americastestkitchen.com/articles/8204-three-esse...
* Under USD 75: https://archive.is/https://www.americastestkitchen.com/equip...
For most daily needs: chef's knife, pairing knife, serated/bread knife. Possibly useful 'extras': kitchen shears, petty/utility, boning, slicing/carving. They do not recommend sets.
More important is learning proper knife skills, including maintenance and sharpening. Even the best knives need to be taken care of.
Dead Comment
I really enjoy markets like they describe and I've experienced them in Asia, but I have no idea where I'd find one in WA State.
Somewhat similar to the book of the Blue Bottle founder on coffee and his company path. Both are basically, as the GP remarked, are glimpses into other people's passion and deep fascination with a certain subject. Fantastic reads IMO.
* In fact, let me add two more books - Ivan Ramen and Tartine Bread. Similar introductions into lives of people and their obsessions with a specific subject.
https://www.amazon.com/Sharp-Definitive-Introduction-Sharpen...
https://www.amazon.com/Blue-Bottle-Craft-Coffee-Roasting/dp/...
https://www.amazon.com/Ivan-Ramen-Obsession-Recipes-Unlikely...
https://www.amazon.com/Tartine-Bread-Chad-Robertson/dp/08118...
If anyone knows other books of the same nature, I'm all ears.
So much so, that I went out of my way to get the longer chef knife/gyuto version of it off eBay last year! It's freaking fantastic! They're both well maintained now, honed often and my two go-to knives over a wusthof and bunch of Misen knives
I haven't been there in (way) too long, but there used to be a great pierogi vendor -- so even on cold rainy mornings (too common) you'd at least get some warm delicious breakfast.
Dead Comment
I tried a bunch of kitchen sheers. They lacked leverage. These cut bones with ease.
OP's writing is nice, but he is de facto a scalper looking for the maximum amount of arbitrage. There's enough of them, like mentioned in the article, that they'll pick any flea market or secondhand store clean off diamonds in the rough before you as a regular guy really get a chance to find any.
What they're doing isn't illegal or forbidden, but it has completely destroyed the spirit of flea markets and secondhand stores as quaint places. And in response to becoming as hypercapitalist as the rest of society, a large contingent of people on flea markets has started to offer whole tables stuffed with cheap AliExpress / Temu crap. Or AI art being sold as "handmade".
The enthusiast offering artisanal coffee or lemonade or cinnamon rolls from his stall or food truck has quadrupled his prices, because if everyone else is gouging the visitor, why shouldn't he?
The same goes for secondhand clothing stores. They're wise to the scalpers looking to flip stuff on Vinted or whatever, so they have also doubled or even tripled their prices. It's an open secret that a lot of stores let the girls working there have a first lookover of whatever comes in.
My conclusion is that very few normies care about edge quality and most of those that do are making some sort of hobby out of it and want to buy something excessively fancy. See also Japanese knives; I'm sure they're very nice but two minutes with a whetstone will get any shitty piece of metal sharp enough to cut some chicken. There's no reason to overthink this stuff.
If there's a local community college or trade school with a culinary program, they might sell stuff like this or at least be able to direct you to suppliers.
https://www.amazon.com/Accurate-Whetstone-Sharpener-Effortle...
Normies DO care about edge quality but they DON'T care about fiddling with fancy "whetstones" and "diamond sharpeners" and such. Sharpen it, clean with soap and water, dry and burn it (to remove the rabies and typhus) and wipe it down with olive oil, mmmmm!
Elaborate? You heat your knives after every sharpening?
https://www.tsprof.eu wants a word
There are many quality whetstones to choose from and a lot of debate on the absolute best. But TLDR, KING is generally highly rated:
https://www.hocho-knife.com/king/