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Growing up in the suburbs we always thought Ginsu knives were the best knifes you could own (they cut through cans!), and well, they’ll always hold a special place in our hearts. But as our culinary skills increased over the years, we needed a better set of knives. In 2003 we received this set of Henckels knives as a gift (superstitions be damned!) and they’ve served us well over the years as we’ve added a couple more knives to our set.
But for more than six years one thing we never had done was a professional knife sharpening. Sure we’d use the sharpening steel every so often, but as Jacques Pepin states in his book Complete Techniques “[steels] give a super finish to an already sharp knife.” His point being that eventually you have to have a knife professionally sharpened, as the steel really works best at fine-tuning a well sharpened blade. Once your knife has dulled, a steel can’t do very much.
When we read in last month’s Wall Street Journal (might require login) this article about mail-order knife sharpening, we knew we had to give one of these a try. We opted for what sounded like the best overall (if more expensive) of the services they tried, The Knife Guy. For $45 you get a box that holds up to five knives (there is also a larger 15 knife set for $72) and includes 3 way FedEx ground shipping (empty box to you, dull knives to him, sharp knives back to you). The knives come back to you in the same box with one additional shipping label. You are now a repeat customer and the total cost is lowered. Save the box & the shipping label and in 6-12 months when you want them sharpened again, just go to the website, pay for the service, and ship your knives.
We sent ours in just days after the article appeared in the WSJ. I guess were lucky because The Knife Guy isn’t taking on new customers now until July 1st, too much good publicity it would seem. A week later and we had our knives back to us, not only sharpened but also polished. The difference in our newly sharpened knives is incredible; so much so we’ve had to relearn how to use our kitchen knives lest we sever a fingertip. Now we can see how much extra pressure we’ve been adding over the years, as our knives became more & more dull, to cut through even the most forgiving fruits & veggies (yes, even the tomato).
If you need your knives sharpened and can wait until July, we highly recommend trying The Knife Guy. Not to say that the other mail-order services mentioned in the WSJ are not worth a try. But for ease of ordering & shipping, we feel like The Knife Guy is worth the wait.
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Also, The Atlantic recently had a good piece on cooking knives: http://food.theatlantic.com/artisans/how-to-wield-a-knife.php
you just can’t find a good infomercial these days like the Ginsu informercials. this was a good tip for an urban resident like myself who likes to minimize time spent doing errands.
Support local businesses–5th Street Hardware right in our neighborhood sharpens knives right on site! And they have specials on knife sharpening (maybe $3 or $5 per knife?) every so often.
Buy a sharpener — can get one for less than $20 and they work well enough to keep them sharp between professional grindings (should be 1x a year). Dull knives cause most kitchen accidents.
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I like the idea of the Knife Guy, but I use my chef’s knife just about every day. So if you can’t wait for July, or can’t do without your knives for a week or two, Union Meat at Eastern Market sharpens knives (the quality had been so, so at times), as does Let’s Meat on the Avenue in Alexandria. And for what it’s worth, home cooks should have their knives sharpened annually and use their steel every time the knife comes out of the block or drawer.