More Tools Accumulate

One or two mildly interesting things have happened this week.

First of all, I wrote about how I suddenly realized I was a catch, simply because I’m not a lunatic or completely full of shit. And a lady sent me a nice email, saying she wanted to get better acquainted because she agreed. I sent what I thought was a perfectly okay reply, and I never heard from her again.

I think this illustrates one of the chief difficulties men face. Or maybe it doesn’t, but it might. It may be that this person read what I said, put the worst possible spin on it, and decided the best course was never to talk to me again. I wouldn’t be surprised. Women do that constantly. For example, you say, “Wow, you look great today.” And the woman says, “Oh, so before today, I was a total hag.” And then she runs away and eats ice cream with her cat and dies single.

I don’t know if that’s what happened, but it wouldn’t be a shock. Anyway, I thought it was nice of her to send the initial email.

Speaking of disappearing correspondents, the guy who wanted to send me a pig cooker ran off. Maybe I freaked him out, too. His company finally put some photos up on its site, and the cookers look good. Oops. Link removed because the site has been taken down. Oh well.

Adding a smoke box to that thing would be child’s play. I don’t know if I like the all-steel construction. Plywood insulates, so I suppose a pig cooks from all sides in a wood box. I hope these guys do well. Pig-cooker competition means better, cheaper pig cookers.

I guess everyone knows that Punxsutawney Phil, the famous groundhog, predicted an early spring. I know what you're thinking. "GLOBAL WARMING AFFECTS RODENT BEHAVIOR." But that's not it. You see, after the last Punxsutawney Phil predicted more winter weather, Christopher Walken paid him a visit. He may tell you about it soon. The town hushed it up for economic reasons, but they sat the new groundhog down and made him understand that under no circumstances was he to see his own shadow. So break out the swimsuits and show your gratitude by sending Chris a couple of C-notes.

I'm not even going to check to see if I spelled "Punxsutawney" right.

I picked up a couple of Japanese kitchen knives. A reader mentioned them in a comment. I'm inclined to think they're generally a bit better than American and European knives. Our knives are way too thick. Also, the Japanese get all excited about anything they might be able to use to stab themselves in the belly. Okay, I guess that's not true, but they practically have a fetish about swords and knives. Actually, I'm sure they DO have a fetish. They have a fetish about everything else.

I'm not one of those nuts who mindlessly assumes everything Asian is better. The tea ceremony is just plain stupid. The martial arts don't work nearly as well as people think they do. An Asian diet will knock about nine inches off your adult height. Yes, they do make nice cars. On the other hand, who are we comparing them to? The American auto industry is composed of the biggest pack of drooling morons ever to collect a paycheck. The managers, the engineers, the line workers...every level of the industry is contaminated by a brand of stupidity that can only be described as awe-inspiring. If Haiti made cars, they'd be better than ours. That's the situation.

I can't believe we're not even able to make the cars look pretty. Isn't that a threshold task? How hard can it be to find talented, dateless nerds who draw cars all day and give them jobs? Pretty hard, I guess, because it isn't happening. A few models here and there look nice, but generally, our cars look like they were designed by Fred Mertz. I know things are improving, generally, but we still suck.

You can really go insane buying Japanese knives. If you really chug the Kool-Aid, you can end up spending $400 for a cleaver. I can see spending over a hundred bucks on a knife, if you have the money, and the knife is really, really nice, and you cook a lot, and you just feel like having some fun. But a person who spends $400 isn't a cook; he's a collector.

I bought a boner (cheap laugh) and a vegetable knife, by Tojiro. Not expensive, and they seem pretty nice. I thought the boner ("honesuki") might be helpful when making turducken. The vegetable knife ("Nakiri") ought to be good for onions and so on, and it's wider than the knife I now use, so I should be able to hold stuff on the blade. I also ordered a santoku, which is a Japanese chef knife. I decided on a Kershaw. And I got a really cheap cleaver-shaped chef knife from China. The only other knives I really need are a meat cleaver and a giant pig-carving knife. I figure I'll get a Forschner pig knife (14", fibrox), but I may actually spend money on a decent cleaver. And I want a mallet, for driving the cleaver through stuff.

My favorite kitchen knives are a 20-year old cheapo Henckels chef knife with a thin blade and a broken tip, and a slightly thicker cheapo Henckels in a more conventional shape. I wish I could get a replacement for the thin knife. Thick knives last, but the simple fact is, they don't work well. They're harder to push through food, and cutting anything hard--like potatoes or yuca--is dangerous. That's probably why Cook's Illustrated rated a $30 Forschner chef knife so highly in its tests. The thinner blade made it more useful than fat forged knives costing two hundred bucks.

It's not a matter of sharpness, either. I keep a diamond "steel" and a honing steel handy at all times, and I can put a shaving edge on any of my knives in about thirty seconds. The thickness of a fat blade exerts outward pressure on food. It has nothing to do with the edge. An eighth of a inch is just too damn thick, unless you're cutting down trees with it.

I also got myself a potato ricer. Anything that will give me good mashed potatoes and save me the fun of peeling is a good investment.

I got the Chinese cleaver just for fun, but they're supposed to work really well. And they make you look crazy and scary in the kitchen.

Here's a question. What do you do for a wood block, when your knives don't match? I've been wondering. Far as I know, there is no tool made that will cut a 10"-deep knife pit in a solid block. Presumably, you have to cut the pit into a flat piece of wood with a router and then glue the wood to another piece. I don't know. I guess I can continue using a magnetic strip on the wall, but it's getting crowded. A drawer is no good. The knives get banged up.

I'm really enjoying my Boker switchblade. I like to pull it out and wave it at Marv and say, "Let's DANCE." He never takes me up on it. He knows who's the man. I don't care how old I get; I'm sure I will always love playing with a knife that opens with the press of a button. And also rockets and Roman candles. If you're a man and you don't enjoy those...well, you're NOT a man, now are you?

Finally, let me announce that Kim du Toit is having some sort of big gun-fest in Texas this summer. Check it out. I looked at the laws, and it turns out that all the states I have to drive through to get to Texas have reciprocity with Florida. That means I could take my guns without too much fear of a hassle. Tempting. And if there is barbecue, I could probably stand the humiliation of being out-shot by a bunch of old farts.