Before I get into this latest post, just a reminder that the very lovely & hard working people at Crisis, the homeless helping charity, need your money, day in, day out, to help their clients, the (expanding in numbers) homeless & hungry. Just £23 helps one homeless person. Keep giving. I am. Click on this link and keep clicking 🙂
I’ve talked about the various tools of the trade before and just how expensive and all-consuming a passion their purchase could be and I just bought the latest book by Tim Hayward called “Knife” (and it’s featured in the Observer this weekend) who has written about his own passion for knives and their history in the kitchen.
I’ve not had a chance to finish it yet, being distracted both by (a) the work to help the local homeless that we’re planning with friends & colleagues in the area for the future and (b) the endless online viewing of possible new (pricey) purchases. I mean this isn’t too bad is it?
Or this?
But his book covers knives from all around the globe with different cultures (England & Europe, China and, of course, the currently hugely popular, Japanese steel), their history & mystique and ends with the care and attention needed to keep them sharp (i.e. safe — a blunt knife is a standing invitation to hurting yourself as you try and get it to cut something it’s patently not going to only to find it slips and takes a large, A&E visit needing chunk out of your tender flesh. So sharpen them, regularly) and long lived.
It’s not as detailed or as full of pages as his first book — that I still love and refer regularly to — the previously mentioned Food DIY, but it’s a worthwhile book if you have any interest in knives and their use in the kitchen. And if you’re a cook of any sort, surely that’s a given, no?
