I Bought A Knife...

Would knew it would be this difficult?

I teamed up again with California Grown to bring you my version of a CaliRican Sofrito; filled with local peppers and produce found in Northern California.

MAKE SURE TO >WATCH THE VIDEO< FOR ALL OF YOU VISUAL LEARNERS

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And don’t forget to be on the lookout tomorrow, because I’m going to show you what you can do with a simple sofrito! Do you like Shishito peppers?! Newsletter subscribers get early access to the shishito recipe! A quick and easy shishito pepper recipe will be posted on Instagram reels tomorrow.

You can find the Sofrito recipe here: https://californiagrown.org/recipes/puerto-rican-sofrito/

And the shishito here: https://californiagrown.org/recipes/shishitos-pepper-recipe/

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I briefly mentioned that I purchased a vintage knife for myself last Christmas. And that sentiment has mostly stayed with me.

I’ve had the same knife since culinary school. It’s a 10 inch Messermeister. I really didn’t give much thought to my knife, or knives in general, until last Christmas when someone rang my knife through a “sharpener” and it demolished and ravaged my blade. Incomprehensible. Inconsolable. I reached out to Messermeister and they asked me for the model number and replied, “that knife is 13 years old.” Whoops!

I ended up just buying another Messermeister like it, but it also sent me down the course of looking at more knives.

When I spoke to one of my former culinary school instructors - who ran the on campus restaurant, if you see my mise, either blame or congratulate him bc he’s the reason it is what it is - I asked him how many knives he had. “In storage or in the kitchen?” What in the…he basically buys himself one nice knife a year.

He asked me how many knives I had. I replied “one.”

“illyanna, are knives not tools of your trade? Do you not need them to do your job? Why wouldn’t you invest in your craft?” he shouted.

I went out and purchased a few other knives: an 8 inch Misen.

8’’ vintage Wusthof, 8’’ Misen and 10’’ Messermeister

When I enrolled in culinary school, Global was that knife. And that’s mostly because Bourdain used them. I always hated Global because the handle was slippery AF and I have salchicha hands. It’s a knife definitely built for those with elegant hands. Only one person in the program actually had them, because they were expensive, and we’d mostly just stand around his knife kit and ooh and awe. When I stepped out to look for a knife, I expected to see Global. Nope. Wüsthof? Nope. Henckels? Nope. The whole world of knives changed in that 15-year period of time. I went online to look at knives and I didn’t see anything that I liked. And while buying a vintage knife sight unseen might seem a little weird, it seemed like that was the only way I was going to get the knife that I wanted. 

I don’t use an 8 inch which is the standard chefs knife size. I’m used to a bigger knife, preferably a 10 inch. I use the tip of the blade for more fine work; dicing onions. And I use the base of the blade to scoop up all of the contents and set them aside. Very much the same way that I’ve seen a lot of cooking content creators use a bench scraper to scoop up their ingredients. I don’t need a bench scraper because I have the thickness of the bottom of the blade to do that part of the job. Which is great because I don’t need to have multiple tools to do one job. And who needs to dirty another tool?

The vintage knife I purchased last Christmas was procured via eBay, from a dealer who specializes in vintage knives. Turns out they were also based in Marin County. I purchased two knives, the 8 inch Wüsthof and a 12 inch Wüsthof, both from the 1960s. Both with chunky dark wooden handles. I noticed - at the most inopportune moment - that I needed a heavy knife to do some butchery when I roast my whole hogs on the spit. While the Messermeister is a long knife, it’s also a light knife. This 12 inch Wüsthof is a heavy beast perfect for spatchcoking chickens and turkeys…and hogs.

I still needed an everyday 10 inch. Bernal Cutlery follows me on Instagram and they carry my cookbook. Why not go there and just check it out? And what I noticed when I walked into the shop was that is the same feeling…I didn’t know anything about knives. The whole world of knives, or the preference of knives, has changed. Most of the knives there were Japanese, and they have a much thinner blade. Bernal Cutlery mostly showcases knives from smaller brands. But, they also have vintage knives! Which of course I gravitated to, but no one on the floor couldn’t really tell me much about them. The only brand I recognized was K Sabatier, which is a French company.

I was trying to explain to the employee helping me about my knife preference, I don’t like Japanese knives because everything about them is too thin. Blade is too thin. Handle is too thin. Although there were a few knives that had the thin Japanese blade and a chunkier Western handle. But of course, I don’t really have the proper vernacular to go in depth beyond that. The employee was just as confused as I was. He stepped aside for a while and came back, and for the first time, I felt like I was wasting their time. Something that doesn’t often come across my brain feed. I ended up buying a knife I really didn’t like and probably won’t use. Just as I was checking out the employee asked me name and my savior popped up, “Would you mind signing some books for me?!” It was Kelly.

Kelly Kozak, is one of the owners of Bernal Cutlery. She and Josh Donald opened the store in 2005 in the Mission. “We are a full-service cutlery shop offering sharpening services, Japanese and Western culinary knives, vintage knives, outdoor, pocket and craft knives, cooking tools and accessories. We also offer knife skills and sharpening classes, and more.”

I was able to have a conversation with Kelly (and eventually Josh at the Cookbook Fest) about the market changes of knives. In the two minutes that I explained/described to Kelly what I liked in a knife she floated off, turned around, and was holding a knife that nearly fit all of the characteristics I look for in a knife. She’s incredibly intuitive and knows her shit.

The knife was a 10 inch Friedr Herder. It’s just light enough not to irritate my carpal and large enough to scoop ingredients. I wish the color of the handle was a darker wood and I wish the tip was a little finer, much like my Messermeister. But, it’s as close to my preference as I’m going to get in the land of the industry’s current preference.

“Friedr Herder Abr Sohn company is the longest continually operating knife making operation in Solingen Germany. It’s famous Pikas spade logo was registered in 1727 although their place in Solingen’s blade making traces further back. Friedr Herder has kept many old patterns in carbon steel in production and offers a variety of new production knives for professionals and home cooks.”

Who knew that I’d end up defending the cumbersome size and weight of German knives? Am I turning into one of those old guards of the culinary industry?