typical spoon

Mom gave me the 8” Wusthof when I moved out. Rosewood handle, riveted, with a full tang and a light-weight bolster. It had been a wedding gift, she said. It was my only knife for years, carved up dozens of pounds of chicken and bell peppers. I even cut bread with it, though it would give the crumb this weird, smooth finish.

A cutlery shop in downtown Portland gave the 8-inch an amazing edge a week before they shuttered. The narrow end of the bolster has this mirror-finish even four years later. Guy who ran the place chatted with me for 15 or 20 minutes about San Francisco, and Japanese knives, and how he couldn’t compete with larger kitchen store chains and their shelves of awful, metal-eating do-it-at-home electric sharpeners. The place is a venue now, bought by the bar next door and affectionately dubbed “The Knife Shop”.

I bought the 6-inch at a thrift store for three dollars, making it knife number two, and it’s just as good. Made me realize I needed a proper chef’s knife, though - something with a wider blade. My knuckles were always hitting the cutting board.