I don't know about you, but a lot of my resolutions this year revolve around food and cooking.
My most recent obsession is The Kitchn, part of a blog family that include Apartment Therapy and a few other fun places to waste time. I love the advice, I love finding out about strange spices, I love the product and book reviews.
Here are some of their knife-related articles that you might like:
(Hint: you should use sharp knives and we can help you with that one!)
How to Cope with Your Parents' Dull Knives
Don't be Shy: Sharpen Your Paring Knives
Knife Skills: Keeping Your Knife Sharp
Knife Skills: How to Hold Your Knife
Showing posts with label sharpening. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sharpening. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Edge maintenance
I don't know if any of you read Lifehacker. Their tagline is "Tips, tricks, and downloads for getting things done." This can be an everyday basic sort of thing (how to set a table, fall asleep faster, pick the best email service), or wacky fixes for problems, or some complicated techno-gadget projects. (One guess about which sort of article I usually skip!)
Anyway, I love them and their top story right now is "How Do I Sharpen a Kitchen Knife?". Mostly the article deals with honing a knife using your butcher's steel, which is a breeze. They have really good instructions, so I'll just add one note to that: Watch your ANGLE! Holding the knife at a bad angle to the steel will just dull the edge even more. Not to mention the fact that it can leave some ugly scratches on the blade.
When it comes to actual sharpening, the article doesn't really go there. So I will.
A quick search will give you a lot of easy home sharpening methods, mostly in the form of pull-through or electric sharpeners. Carl's favorites right now are from Chef's Choice. But really the best way for you to sharpen things at home is to get a sharpening stone of some sort. Some people insist on diamond stones, other people use nothing but natural stones. It's a personal thing, really, but I can tell you that a Norton combination stone was the one that outsold the others last holiday season.
If you're not in a do-it-yourself mood, we can do it for you!
For those of you who live nearby, you can drop off your knives directly and we give you a call when they're ready to pick up.
If you're too far away, we have a mail-in sharpening service. Here's a list of the different packages we offer.
And remember the Big Three of Knife Care
1) Say NO to the dishwasher!
The heat, harsh detergents, and all the bouncing around are not good for your knife. This goes double (quadruple!) if your knife has a wooden handle.
2) Use a cutting board that makes your knife happy.
It doesn't like hard countertops or glass cutting boards. Stick with wood, bamboo, or plastic if you want your edge to last longer.
3) Store it safely and securely. Anything is better than tossing it in a drawer to bang around with you measuring spoons and garlic press. Even storing it in the cardboard or plastic sleeve it came in will help protect the edge, if you don't have the counter space for a knifeblock and an Edge Guard feels too professional-chef-y.
Anyway, I love them and their top story right now is "How Do I Sharpen a Kitchen Knife?". Mostly the article deals with honing a knife using your butcher's steel, which is a breeze. They have really good instructions, so I'll just add one note to that: Watch your ANGLE! Holding the knife at a bad angle to the steel will just dull the edge even more. Not to mention the fact that it can leave some ugly scratches on the blade.
When it comes to actual sharpening, the article doesn't really go there. So I will.
A quick search will give you a lot of easy home sharpening methods, mostly in the form of pull-through or electric sharpeners. Carl's favorites right now are from Chef's Choice. But really the best way for you to sharpen things at home is to get a sharpening stone of some sort. Some people insist on diamond stones, other people use nothing but natural stones. It's a personal thing, really, but I can tell you that a Norton combination stone was the one that outsold the others last holiday season.
If you're not in a do-it-yourself mood, we can do it for you!
For those of you who live nearby, you can drop off your knives directly and we give you a call when they're ready to pick up.
If you're too far away, we have a mail-in sharpening service. Here's a list of the different packages we offer.
And remember the Big Three of Knife Care
1) Say NO to the dishwasher!
The heat, harsh detergents, and all the bouncing around are not good for your knife. This goes double (quadruple!) if your knife has a wooden handle.
2) Use a cutting board that makes your knife happy.
It doesn't like hard countertops or glass cutting boards. Stick with wood, bamboo, or plastic if you want your edge to last longer.
3) Store it safely and securely. Anything is better than tossing it in a drawer to bang around with you measuring spoons and garlic press. Even storing it in the cardboard or plastic sleeve it came in will help protect the edge, if you don't have the counter space for a knifeblock and an Edge Guard feels too professional-chef-y.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Spring is around the corner
It's the time of year when the weather is having its first faltering steps towards warming up. Every now and then you'll look down and shake your head at the few dim bulbs that are sending up green shoots (daffodils, I find, are the main offenders). Yes, spring, that magical time of year when a young man's thoughts turn to... gardening! Why, what did you think we were going to talk about?
While Heimerdinger Cutlery has a lot of knives, we also carry some Felco gardening tools, which I'll be talking more about in a few days. More importantly, we also sharpen garden tools.
Bring us your dull, your nicked,
Your hedge trimmers longing to be used,
The refuse from your garden shed.
Send these, the unusable, rust-stained to us,
We grind their edges behind the shop room's door.
Now is a wonderful time for locals to bring in their gardening tools to be sharpened. What do I mean by that? I mean your limb loppers, your grass shears, your pruners. Sadly, I don't think we sharpen mower blades anymore (I'll double check that for you tomorrow), but we do sell sharpening stones so that you can touch up the edges yourself.
Luckily it is still early enough in the year, and we've gotten enough snow, that nobody has brought any by. Yet. Bring them by now, before it's too late! Before Carl is buried under a pile of sharpening work!
Better yet, go ahead and mark your calendar for this winter. January and February are the best times to bring in big sharpening jobs, because they're slower. The holidays are over, Derby is far off, so there aren't many knives in. It's not a time when you'll need your gardening tools, so it's perfect. But for now, just go ahead, bring them in and we'll get you ready for Spring.
More Spring prep to come. Watch this space!
Monday, March 9, 2009
Preparation
It's not too soon to think about getting ready for the Kentucky Derby, at least if you live in Louisville it isn't.
Derby time is busy time for our sharpening department, so you'll want to drop off your knives early. We want to be sure that everyone has nice sharp knives for all the cooking they'll be doing.
My favorite part of the Festival is always Thunder Over Louisville, which is the largest annual pyrotechnic display in North America. It is absolutely amazing to attend. The Air Show is good, too, and apparently is very highly rated.
Derby time is busy time for our sharpening department, so you'll want to drop off your knives early. We want to be sure that everyone has nice sharp knives for all the cooking they'll be doing.
My favorite part of the Festival is always Thunder Over Louisville, which is the largest annual pyrotechnic display in North America. It is absolutely amazing to attend. The Air Show is good, too, and apparently is very highly rated.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
It's beginning to look a lot like....
Shopping season!
I'll be keeping an eye out for things that other people recommend and suggesting other things. My first suggestion is one that I will always always always have: The Kentucky Spring salad tongs.
Kentucky Spring salad tongs were recently spotted in the June 2008 issue of Gourmet magazine. They would have been spotted sooner, but that issue was hiding from me for a couple of months.
You might remember me raving about them last year, when they were written up in The Best of Everything column in the (Louisville) Courier-Journal. I got a pair for Christmas and I use them all the time. Simple design, but very effective (except with some cherry tomatoes, but who likes those anyway. bleah).
They're inexpensive, which makes them good for gift-givers on a budget who still want to give quality gifts. They flip open and closed, which helps save valuable drawer space. They're more stylish than metal cafeteria tongs, and just as easy to keep clean. They're handmade locally, making them good gifts for out-of-town relatives.
Speaking of gifts and the holiday season, it's time to start thinking about Turkey Day. If you don't have a good knife, it's time to start thinking about getting one. If you already have one, you might want to consider whether it needs sharpening. If you're bringing it to US to get sharpened, please do so ASAP. It's a very busy time of year for us, and we don't want to get too much of a sharpening backlog or someone might not get their knife back in time.
And on that note, here's a scene from West Wing, Season 2, episode 8.
For those who aren't wing-nuts, this is the episode where the President is having his intern, Charlie, run all over trying to find a good carving knife. At first he starts out looking for a good american made knife, but he ends up going with the best: a good german knife. I believe it was actually a Wustof knife, but I can't find the clip.
I'll be keeping an eye out for things that other people recommend and suggesting other things. My first suggestion is one that I will always always always have: The Kentucky Spring salad tongs.
Kentucky Spring salad tongs were recently spotted in the June 2008 issue of Gourmet magazine. They would have been spotted sooner, but that issue was hiding from me for a couple of months.
You might remember me raving about them last year, when they were written up in The Best of Everything column in the (Louisville) Courier-Journal. I got a pair for Christmas and I use them all the time. Simple design, but very effective (except with some cherry tomatoes, but who likes those anyway. bleah).
They're inexpensive, which makes them good for gift-givers on a budget who still want to give quality gifts. They flip open and closed, which helps save valuable drawer space. They're more stylish than metal cafeteria tongs, and just as easy to keep clean. They're handmade locally, making them good gifts for out-of-town relatives.
Speaking of gifts and the holiday season, it's time to start thinking about Turkey Day. If you don't have a good knife, it's time to start thinking about getting one. If you already have one, you might want to consider whether it needs sharpening. If you're bringing it to US to get sharpened, please do so ASAP. It's a very busy time of year for us, and we don't want to get too much of a sharpening backlog or someone might not get their knife back in time.
And on that note, here's a scene from West Wing, Season 2, episode 8.
For those who aren't wing-nuts, this is the episode where the President is having his intern, Charlie, run all over trying to find a good carving knife. At first he starts out looking for a good american made knife, but he ends up going with the best: a good german knife. I believe it was actually a Wustof knife, but I can't find the clip.
Friday, February 15, 2008
Every Girl's Crazy 'bout a Sharpedged Knife
I was just sitting down to write a scintillating post about how to sharpen a knife and all that goes with that, when I found this video for you.
If any of you have ever gotten the talk about how to use a steel in our store, you'll notice the similarity in hand movements. Like the man in the video, we also sharpen knives by hand, though we have a lot more equipment. (At some point, when I remember to take my camera to Louisville, you'll get a tour of the shop.)
To summarize the video, calling it a "sharpening steel" isn't quite accurate. It really hones the edge until the knife becomes too worn and needs to have a new edge ground onto it. This is best done professionally, in general, and frequency depends on how much you use your knife. If you use a steel regularly and take good care of your knife, every year or two is sufficient.
In the meantime, remember these guidelines:
1)Remember, use your steel!
2) Use a cutting board, not the counter or a plate.
A wooden cutting board is best for your knife, though any material will work if you avoid hard surfaces like glass. Bamboo cutting boards are very fashionable at the moment, as well as being a good choice ecologically. Remember to wash it after cutting meat and poultry.
2) SAY NO TO THE DISHWASHER!
Using a dishwasher can dull your knife and damage the handle.
3)Store knives somewhere secure.
There are several options available, from blocks that sit on the counter, ones the mount on the underside of your cabinets, or ones that can sit in your gadget drawer. If those occupy too much space, you can always get an edge guard, which will protect both the blade and your hand when you reach into a crowded drawer.
If any of you have ever gotten the talk about how to use a steel in our store, you'll notice the similarity in hand movements. Like the man in the video, we also sharpen knives by hand, though we have a lot more equipment. (At some point, when I remember to take my camera to Louisville, you'll get a tour of the shop.)
To summarize the video, calling it a "sharpening steel" isn't quite accurate. It really hones the edge until the knife becomes too worn and needs to have a new edge ground onto it. This is best done professionally, in general, and frequency depends on how much you use your knife. If you use a steel regularly and take good care of your knife, every year or two is sufficient.
In the meantime, remember these guidelines:
1)Remember, use your steel!
2) Use a cutting board, not the counter or a plate.
A wooden cutting board is best for your knife, though any material will work if you avoid hard surfaces like glass. Bamboo cutting boards are very fashionable at the moment, as well as being a good choice ecologically. Remember to wash it after cutting meat and poultry.
2) SAY NO TO THE DISHWASHER!
Using a dishwasher can dull your knife and damage the handle.
3)Store knives somewhere secure.There are several options available, from blocks that sit on the counter, ones the mount on the underside of your cabinets, or ones that can sit in your gadget drawer. If those occupy too much space, you can always get an edge guard, which will protect both the blade and your hand when you reach into a crowded drawer.
Sunday, November 11, 2007
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.
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.
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