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!

Tomato shark

Every now and then, a single-use tool comes along that makes itself invaluable. That’s what the tomato shark did. But then I discovered that it has a second great use too. Its main purpose is to take the stem end out of a tomato. While a paring knife does this task well, it takes the knife a few movements and sometimes leaves an irregular and too-large hole in the top of your tomato.

The shark will take the core out in one smooth motion, leaving a hole that’s perfectly round and as shallow, or deep, as needed. The shark’s second function is that it’s terrific at removing the tops from strawberries. It’s better than a knife because it just takes off the green stem, and not too much of the edible berry. But be careful. The tomato shark’s teeth may be small, but it’s still easy to snag your fingers on them. And we all know about shark bites.

Mini chopper

Cheese wire

A knife wound heals; a wound caused by words does not.

The blessed knife eats of the meat of the “kinandu”.

The butcher looked for his knife and it was in his mouth.

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.

Charles Buxton

The rule in carving holds good as to criticism; never cut with a knife what you can cut with a spoon.

Knife Skills —

a kitchen guide to using the right knife the right way

Tomato shark

Tad Williams

Charles Buxton