I spent Saturday picking out a new fancy chef's knife for an early birthday present for myself and shopping at the Pasadena Farmer's Market to buy produce to make dinner for friends. I felt better to see that even Jonathan Gold's kid gets fussy when faced with a crowded farmer's market. But I sort of blew off thinking about dessert options for my dinner, thinking I'd figure something out at the last minute. Then I returned home, only to fortuitously find a package of gourmet baking mix that The Lazy Baker sent for me to try. Plus, it was oatmeal cherry raisin, one of my preferred cookie flavors. I try to only make things from scratch, but I have to admit it was helpful to have a shortcut after making a whole dinner of salad, Moroccan chicken and couscous. Since you add a stick of butter and and egg, the cookies taste pretty close to homemade. The ingredients are all natural, but they put them together for you with a separate packet of dried fruit. They also come in chocolate chip, brown sugar pecan shortbread and gingerbread. I'm not going to stop making cookies from scratch, but these are certainly handy to have when you're in a hurry or have some kids to entertain. The Lazy Baker is available at Whole Foods and Bristol Farms, or for $10.95 online.
While the cookies were baking, I got to play with my new scary-sharp Shun chef's knife from Bed and Bath. All my life, I've been using cheap knives, and I guess it's time to grow up, knife-wise. But it might be more commitment than I'm ready for. Anyone know where to get them sharpened?
12 comments:
I take my knives to Ross Cutlery at 310 S Broadway. Bought the Henkel's Twin Cermax 9-1/2 inch (Japanese-style) chef's knife there too.
My knives turned out great. I say, check it out.
I haven't been to Bristol Farms in South Pasadena for years, but they used to sharpen knives there. That said, I never had a knife that was good enough to bother having sharpened by a pro, so I can't actually attest to the quality of BF's sharpening.
I recently ate one of the Lazy Baker's brown sugar pecan shortbread cookies. Solid, and oatmeal cherry raisin sounds ever better. Good one-two-punch with your My Taco review.
Bristol Farms in South Pas - go to the butcher counter. Whole Foods will also do it.
I have started sharpening with a whetstone becasue I'm sort of obsessive about sharpness, but if you send Shuns back to the factory, they will sharpen them for free.
http://www.kershawknives.com/faq.php?brand=shun
Pat, the only place I would trust my hand forged Japanese knives is www.japaneseknifesharpening.com
They're are one of a few places that hand sharpen using Japanese waterstones. It provides a much better edge and remove the least amount of metal from the knife. Seriously, it will be way sharper than the out of the box edge.
Most local knife sharpeners will you use a powered grinder that take way too much metal off the edge (you see sparks fly and they grind) and are way too coarse of a finish.
It may be a bit a hassle to ship the knife to PA, but there's no better service.
I too have tasted the Lazy Baker Cookies. They are delicious. Admittedly, I put the "Lazy" in Lazy Baker, but the cookies were so easy to make. Like the article states...just like homemade.
give em a try!
Japanese knives and western knives have different edges. Western knives have even angles of sharpness while Japanese knives are made for either right or left handed people. Take a look at you specific knife and see if the edges are symetrical or if there is one side that is steeper. If your knife has a Japanese edge to it, then I wouldn't trust anyone except a person that has experience with these knives and does it with a wetstone. Jay above mentioned a good place and there is Korin at www.japaneseknives.com. I would still get a stone so you can keep the edge. Korin has a great DVD that instructs and shows hoe to sharpen Japanese knives.
I think I'm going to try these
Hear hear Dave at www.japaneseknifesharpening.com is great, I use him for my traditional japanese knives and he is also very well regarded amongst the japanese knife nuts here in the US (www.knifeforum.com)
That is a very nice knife you have there. And those cookies sound delicious. How much did the knife cost?
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