Chefs seem to have a serious set of knives.
However I am not a chef. I am a cook and look at things differently. The chef wants to create a masterpiece to show off his fine culinary skills and create a taste sensation for the most discriminating palates.
I, of course, have the taste of a Phillistine. I just want to simply make something to eat or maybe feed myself and occasionally someone else. I am a cook and actually a pretty good one if you don't mind my saying so. Actually I don't care if you mind it or not.
Anyway, my main tool is a simple knife. It's a utile basic knife that would feel at home in a hunter's sheath or a fisherman's tackle box. In the kitchen it performs a simple function. It cuts things up.
I use it a lot. For example when I make chili. I don't usually use ground beef. I get stew meat or even hack up an inexpensive roast, cutting the pieces to a size of about 1/3 the size of my little toe.
It's a decent basic carbon steel blade that I bought as a basic blank and handled myself out of a piece of mahonany I had floating around and affixed it with brass machine screws. It's the one on the left.
Most people don't know steel. Carbon steel stains fast. The two knives in the picture have no rust on them whatsoever. They're just stained from legitimate use. Take a brand new carbon steel knife and cut an orange and it will instantly stain the steel blue in places. It's a stain and probably won't come out with anything less than a wire wheel.
The one on the right is it's future replacement which I hve used a couple of times here and there. Still, the old one is the go-to.
As you can see, it's grown a lot thinner from years of repeated sharpenings with a simple Old School draw-through sharpener. Bladesmiths will cringe at the thought of a beautiful blade being sharpened with one but it's a utile knife and as such the draw-through does the job quickly instead of screwing around with sticks and stones.
What's interesting is that the older I get the more I like my Old School knife. Eventually when I pass someone will see it at an estate sale for a buck and will likely pass it by. They will have no clue about the tasty meals it's created.
Both knives are identical as far as the steel goes. Only the handles are different. The one on the right has a factory handle and looks smaller because of the angle I was holding the camera when I took the picture.
The longer I have this knife the more I am inspired to use it and cook good meals. It's coming up on 30 years now. I bought the blank at a sutler's that specializes in black powder shooting supplies.
Here's a picture of it in action.
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