Saturday, January 05, 2008

Full Kit?

My Kershaw fillet knife finally arrived. It turns out that while Kershaw's headquartered here in Oregon, the knife's made in Japan. Oh, well. It's as nice a knife as I hoped for -- good comfortable grip, incredibly flexible blade (inportant in a fillet knife), solid feel. The scabbard that came with it is obviously for use by sportsmen and fishermen -- it's plastic with a drainhole. It's a bit bulky for my knife bag, but not impossibly so.

But that brings me to the bleg/query portion of this post, and it's directed at any fellow culinarians/cooks/chefs who might read this blog.

It's going to be a while before I am in the market to buy another knife, but when I am, what should I set my sights on next? Bear in mind that I'm still in school, and I don't expect to be put in a position to specialize any time soon, and while my passions lie in the area of meat cookery and charcuterie, I am trying to develop as a good all-around culinarian. Here's what I have in my kit so far:

Messermeister bird's beak paring knife
AvantGarde Pro 3" paring knife*
Wusthof 4" chef's knife
AvantGarde Pro 6" boning knife
ChefWorks 8" chef's knife*
ChefWorks 9" serrated bread knife
Kershaw 9" fillet knife
Forschner honing steel

*The "AvantGarde Pro and ChefWorks brands were the knives that were issued in our kits when we started school. They're not the big prestigious brands, but they're quality knives -- forged in Germany and assembled in China. They're all full tang, X50 Cr Mo V 15 stainless.

I was thinking that eventually I'd like a big gun -- a 10" chef's, but a cleaver or scimitar both seem like good choices too, especially considering my interest in charcuterie and meat cookery.

Thoughts?

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