{"id":1412,"date":"2021-01-25T19:21:42","date_gmt":"2021-01-26T03:21:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/?p=1412"},"modified":"2021-01-27T17:01:33","modified_gmt":"2021-01-28T01:01:33","slug":"knifes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/2021\/01\/25\/knifes\/","title":{"rendered":"Sorting the Knife Drawer"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I have two sets of really good knives (wedding presents from 2005) I keep on my counter. I added a couple parers and a fish knife. It has basic knives of different sizes, a bread knife, a honer, and scissors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I also have a knife drawer and various other drawers I recently cleaned out and sorted. Now all “things that cut” are together. More or less. While some are ones I bought, most are things I inherited from my mother.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some of the knives I use regularly or at least once in a while. Some are duplicates of ones I use (and I’ll get rid of them). Some I know what they are but don’t need them. Others are a mystery. Then there are the ones that scare me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let’s start easy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Butter knifes. Fancier than the basic flatware ones I have. Designed for spreading things on to bread or crackers. Nothing weird.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This one’s a little weird. It cuts and it spreads. But I can deal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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These are butter knives\/spreaders with pointy tips. Why? I guess to cut a piece of cheese and pick it up?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I use the pizza cutter. I used to use the cheese cutters when I ate cheese. The cake cutter I bought but it didn’t cut my cake at all. Must be for some type of cake I don’t eat. [Edit: the “cake cutter” is actually a cake leveler; the one my friend showed me has two parallel wires not the one mine does.]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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These cut cake. And pie. And tarts and quiche and so forth. Nice normal stuff, most of which I actually use.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Steak knives. I grew up with the set on the left and they’re still usable. I mean I don’t eat steak but they’re great for slicing tomatoes and for teaching children how to cut.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Paring knives. Nice and easy. I just have better ones now. Sorry knives. [Edit: The longer ones on the left are called utility knives.]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I love my cleaver. I got it decades ago when I took a Chinese cooking class. The 3 chefs knives I used before I got married. I don’t understand what the one with the dark handle is for with that funny shape. Raw meat maybe? [Edit: Yes.] I used to have 3 extra bread knives but I gave one to my synagogue’s kitchen after I hosted a meal with 4 dozen bagels that all had to be cut without a bread knife.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Now we’re getting into the weird territory. We start with a grapefruit knife. I doubt my kid has a clue what it is, but I recognize it, even if I never use it. Next could be another grapefruit knife, or for segmenting oranges or lemons or I don’t know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The next ones just scare me. I mean I guess they’re for preparing or carving meat…but why do we have all this three-sided pointiness? Why is there a knife too flimsy to cut anything but long and curved and sharp?

[Edit: the sharp forked tips are for picking stuff up (cheese, meat, tomato slices). The knife on the far right is a saw and raker blade, a heavy-duty knife used for cutting frozen foods. I have no idea why it has a fork on the end.]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I saved the best for last. Okay, it starts normal. A nice honer and a useless manual sharpener. A tiny paring knife. Two cheese knives. Or at least I assume that’s what that elegant pokey thing is with the double spikes. [Edit the one with a fork at the tip is indeed a cheese knife. But the one just to its left, with the flange to protect your hands, appears to be an oyster knife.]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then we have the large version of the 3-sided knife. A chopper that rocks as you use it but looks like something from Star Trek. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then there is the cleaver. Not a lovely balanced rectangular cleaver like the one I use all the time. Nope. This one looks like a mini throwing axe. And then it has the cutouts on the other side. Is that for bonking? It’s not a tenderizer or a serrated blade or even useful for cutting twine. What is it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you can tell me more about any of these knives and similar tools, please leave a comment. I love funny kitchen tools. Even when they scare me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the meantime, here’s a great article showing different knives<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have two sets of really good knives (wedding presents from 2005) I keep on my counter. I added a couple parers and a fish knife. It has basic knives of different sizes, a bread knife, a honer, and scissors. I also have a knife drawer and various other drawers I recently cleaned out and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[136,26],"tags":[79],"class_list":["post-1412","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cooking","category-food","tag-photos-household"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1412"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1412\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1439,"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1412\/revisions\/1439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/norwitz.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}