Our Salad Years

An alert reader of the Courier-Journal has pointed out to me that the exquisitely made Kentucky Springs salad tongs were featured in yesterday's Scene section. We've been selling these for years at the cutlery and using them at home, too!

What's wonderful about these tongs is the design. Unlike a lot of tongs out there, these are designed so that they can be used in just one hand. It works, and far more stylishly than those cheap metal lunchlady tongs! Each pair of tongs is hand steamed and bent into shape until cool to create the distinctive springs. The springs keep the salad tongs open for the user, and when flipped inside out, they allow the salad tongs to fold flat for storage.

The tips of handcrafted Kentucky Spring salad tongs are curved to fit the rounded bottoms of salad bowls. A slight curve is bent along the entire length of handcrafted salad tong piece so the tips meet perfectly, which allows you to get a really good grip on elusive bits of salad or pasta. The types of wood vary from unstained wild cherry, to sugar maple or black walnut.

Another item Kentucky Springs makes that I love (and only received a brief mention in the C-J article) are their cheese slicers.

They are available in the same woods as the tongs, and come in two varieties: straight or Ripple. The latter is the one shown to the right. If you slice at the right angle, you can get a piece of cheese that's as wavy as a potato chip! The cutting wire is especially effective with soft cheeses, but also cuts softer hard cheeses. Works on butter and chocolate, too. You can get different thickness of slices by just changing the angle you hold the slicer at.

I think these make great hostess gifts or stocking stuffers. The tongs in particular would be a good gift for someone who is just starting out with their own apartment (hint, hint!).
You can drop by our store and get them, or order them online. Of course, if you get them in the store, they can be wrapped in our traditional silvery paper with your choice of ribbon colors. It's a very popular option, this time of year.
How do you think I learned to wrap presents so well? ;)

A Classical Education

Wusthof knives has a new line out this fall, called the Classic IKON, which is now available for purchase at select stores.

The Classic IKON updates the standard pattern of the Classic, which is Wusthof's best selling line in the United States. The handle and bolster shape have been modified, with no impact on the high quality that Wusthof is known for. I am proud to announce that Heimerdinger Cutlery is the Exclusive Louisville Independent Dealer for this line.

Here is an interview by Cooking.com at the 2007 Home & Housewares Show, Chicago, that introduces the line and gives more information on it differs from the Classic.



A classic is classic not because it conforms to certain structural rules, or fits certain definitions... It is classic because of a certain eternal and irrepressible freshness. -Edith Wharton

State of the Store Address

There have been a lot of changes at the store in the past few months.

One of the biggest is the permanent retirement of Henry Heimerdinger, the former owner of the store (and my grandfather). He handed control of the business over to Carl in 1991 and semi-retired. Despite that, he still came in a few days a week to help with sharpening items customers brought in (mostly knives, scissors, and gardening tools). His last day was the twenty-ninth of August.

Another big change at around that time was that the clipper repair room was converted into a shipping room. The room has its own computer workstation and plenty of counter space for organizing and wrapping shipments. We've been getting enough online business that Carl decided we needed to dedicate some space to it. Never fear, we still repair clippers and supply repair parts for you to fix it yourself.

Since we lost the elder Mr. Heimerdinger's work back in the shop, we hired a new employee who has been trained in the fine skill of sharpening knives by hand. An interesting note is that some of the grinding wheels used in the shop had their design adapted particularly for this purpose by Henry Heimerdinger, who is a graduate of UofL's Speed School of Engineering. They work as well today as they did twenty years ago.

An Introduction

Hi!

This is the blog for Heimerdinger Cutlery in Louisville, KY. It's a family owned and operated business, since 1861. The store, as a cutlery, sells mainly things like knives, pocket knives, and scissors. However, it also has items such as manicure kits, shaving accessories, magnifying glasses, and a few works by local knifemakers. It is currently owned by Carl Heimerdinger, the fifth generation of Heimerdingers to work in the store.

Who am I?
I'm the oldest of the sixth-generation.
I'll be posting about all sorts of things relating to sharp items and the cutlery store. Every so often, Carl will post information about the care and feeding of knives or scissors.

For the moment, that's all I have, so here's youtube video of how to dice onions and shallots easily.
The knives used are Kershaw Shun Classic knives. Yes, we sell them. ;)