#14) Sharpen My Knives

Selective laziness.  That’s the only way to explain this. 

I have no problem creating a meal plan two weeks in advance and wiping down the sink and shower after every use.  But when it comes to sharpening my knives I have been seriously unmotivated. 

We received this knife set for our wedding almost seven years ago.  We’ve used it probably every day since.  It even comes with its own sharpener!  One time I pulled it out of its slot and gave one of the knives a quick swipe but it made a horrible nails-on-chalkboard sound and I wasn’t sure if I was doing it right so I put it back. 

Every so often I would have this nagging thought about how the flavor of our onions and herbs might be better if I bothered to sharpen the knives, but I would quickly push the thought to the back of mind where it could lurk next to the names of all five New Kids on the Block and the recipe for a Diet Coke cake.

But this is the year.

I purchased this “Wusthof Universal Knife Sharpener” at Home Goods and saved the task for a rainy day.  Just for giggles, I Googled “how to sharpen knives” and came across this Jamie Oliver video where he demonstrates how to use the kind of long steel knife sharpener that came in my knife set. 

 

I decided to make a game of it and have the “Wusthof Universal Knife Sharpener” compete against the Jamie Oliver method. 

Up first was the Wusthof, which was pretty easy to use.  You set it flat on a surface and run the knife between a groove a few times.  It has a setting for standard and Asian knives.  I wasn't sure what kind of knives I had, but I assumed they were standard and went with that. 

The Jamie Oliver method requires more precision—you have to run the knife at a 10 degree angle from base to point on both sides of the steel pole.  It’s not hard, but it makes an evil noise.  Like someone scraping their fork and knife against a plate while you’re trying to enjoy your dinner.  But worse, if you can imagine that.

After sharpening one knife with the Wusthof and another one using Jamie’s method I put them to the test on a couple spaghetti squashes which I needed for a spaghetti squash “mac and cheese”.  The recipe assumes you know how to dissect a spaghetti squash, which I didn’t, so first I had to do a little more Googling to figure it out. 

I found this warning:

Muscle and a sharp knife or cleaver.  Got 'em.

Using the knife that I had sharpened on the Wusthof I easily sliced the first squash clean down the middle.  Easy peasy.  No muscle required.   

When I attempted to use the knife that I had sharpened with Jamie Oliver method, I didn’t have as much luck:

Now I can’t say for sure that it was totally the knife’s fault.  This squash did have some vines growing inside of it, like it might have decided to grow a fetus in fetu. 

This is where I should stop and say that I will never carve a pumpkin.  Slicing this squash felt dangerous enough—so much so that I briefly wondered if I should put off the task until Donnie got home in case I stabbed myself.  I don’t know how people—especially children—manage to wield knives against pumpkins and not end up covered in blood. 

I called a rematch and put the knives head to head against a pile of carrots, and then some lettuce. 

 

The knives were both a thousand times better than they were before I sharpened them, but I was still unable to tell the difference between them so I put them up against the ultimate test—the onion. 

Experts always say that if you dice an onion with a dull knife you crush the cells that give it flavor.  Or maybe they say that about basil.  I don’t know, but I still couldn’t tell the difference. 

It doesn’t matter though, because not having to listen to the horrible noise that the steel pole makes is reason enough to use the Wusthof.  Now that I’ve crossed this item off my to-do list there will be a lot more spaghetti squash in my future. 

But no pumpkins.

 

 

-K.