An Edge in the Kitchen: The Ultimate Guide to Kitchen Knives -- How to Buy Them, Keep Them Razor Sharp, and Use Them Like a Pro

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About An Edge In The Kitchen: The Ultimate Guide To

Product Description Why are most of us so woefully uninformed about our kitchen knives? We are intimidated by our knives when they are sharp, annoyed by them when they are dull, and quietly ashamed that we don't know how to use them with any competence. For a species that has been using knives for nearly as long as we have been walking upright, that's a serious problem. An Edge in the Kitchen is the solution, an intelligent and delightful debunking of the mysteries of kitchen knives once and for all. If you can stack blocks, you can cut restaurant-quality diced vegetables. If you can fold a paper airplane, you can sharpen your knives better than many professionals. Veteran cook Chad Ward provides an in-depth guide to the most important tool in the kitchen, including how to choose the best kitchen knives in your price range, practical tutorials on knife skills, a step-by-step section on sharpening, and more——all illustrated with beautiful photographs throughout. Along the way you will discover what a cow sword is, and why you might want one; why chefs are abandoning their heavy knives in droves; and why the Pinch and the Claw, strange as they may sound, are in fact the best way to make precision vegetable cuts with speed and style. An Edge in the Kitchen is the one and only guide to the most important tool in the kitchen. Review “You’ll be hard pressed to find as succinct and complete a collection of wisdom on the topic as this masterful volume from cook and writer Ward. He covers nearly everything...giving cooks all the information they need....This book [is] as indispensable as the tools themselves.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review) “Chad Ward...has written a handsome volume on knives and everything you might want to know about them, and about using them....It’s not only filled with good info put together with a good design, the writing is lively as well.” — Michael Ruhlman, author of The Making of a Chef, The Soul of a Chef, and The Elements of Cooking “A definitive guide for buying knives....[An Edge in the Kitchen] covers everything you need to know and more.” — Lynne Rossetto Kasper, cookbook author and host of The Splendid Table “This year has already seen the publishing of several good knife books. Add [An Edge in the Kitchen] to the list....Ward...has crafted a book that is instructional and deep...as well as highly readable.” — Tampa Tribune Chad Ward offers all you need to know....A lot of knife wisdom served with a splash of wit and a sprinkle of trivia make this a book you’ll want to read from cover to cover as well as to prop up by your knife block. — Sara Moulton, host of Sara's Secrets About the Author Chad Ward has been a writer and cook for more than twenty years. To date, more than three hundred thousand people have taken Chad's online knife sharpening class on eGullet.org. His writing has appeared in publications such as Best Food Writing and Aviation International News. He lives in North Carolina. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Edge in the Kitchen, An The Ultimate Guide to Kitchen Knives?How to Buy Them, Keep Them Razor Sharp, and Use Them Like a ProBy Chad Ward HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.Copyright © 2008 Chad Ward All right reserved. ISBN: 9780061188480 Chapter One So You Wanna Buy A Knife Buying a good knife or two can be a little like buying your first car. It seems intimidating and expensive. There's a lot of mumbo jumbo and very little clear information. There are a lot of people with a lot of very strong ideas about what you should want, need, and desire. Some of them even have good intentions. Very few of them are unbiased and objective. Much of the problem comes from well-meaning teachers and writers who just haven't kept up with what's going on in professional kitchens, much less metallurgy labs, knife makers' workshops, or manufacturing facilities. It's much easier just to repeat what has been written before or what is taught in an introductory knife skills