This site will give you the confidence to choose and use the knives and other nonelectric sharp tools in your kitchen. It’s also a reference site that you can use as you improve your skills and acquire the tools that will make you a better cook!

Slip sliding away

The most important thing I learned on my first day in cooking school was to put a damp cloth underneath my cutting board. This keeps your board from slipping and sliding on the counter. A damp piece of paper towel also works well. This is crucial because it’s a safety issue: if your cutting board is moving, even a little bit, then your knife will move too. And if your knife, food, and cutting surface are all moving, then you’ve greatly increased your chance of cutting yourself. This little step will help.

Some boards have small suction cups or rubber feet on one side, which also help keep the board from sliding. I don’t like these as much because this means that you can only use one side of the board. If you have a board that’s smooth on both sides, then you have twice as much cutting board as the other ones. And if the board starts to warp, then you can turn it over to help it flatten out again.

Cleaning

How many and what size?

Don’t dig your grave with your own knife and fork.

It is a surprise that the cock should hold a grudge against the pot, instead of the knife that killed it.

The pen can kill a man; no knife is needed.

Tad Williams

He who is certain he knows the ending of things when he is only beginning them is either extremely wise or extremely foolish; no matter which is true, he is certainly an unhappy man, for he has put a knife in the heart of wonder.

Stephen King

Obession is dangerous. It’s like a knife in the mind. In some cases... the knife can turn savagely upon the person wielding it... You use the knife carefully, because you know it doesn’t care who it cuts.

Knife Skills —

a kitchen guide to using the right knife the right way

Slip sliding away

Tad Williams

Stephen King