A non-puppy gift knife?

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mkozlows

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My parents have a set of Cutco knives, which they've had for at least 25 years now. It makes me die a little on the inside when I go over there and see them sawing through vegetables, and I'd like to get them a better knife as a gift.

But... I don't want to get them the knife equivalent of a puppy, something that they're going to have to take care of and do a lot of extra work with and baby extravagantly. I could PROBABLY convince them not to put a knife in the dishwasher. Sharpening might happen annually or less frequently. Anything beyond that just wouldn't happen, and a knife that needed more than that would get shoved in a back drawer and ignored.

So, is there a knife that it makes sense to get for them, given that? Or, for their level of interest/care, is something like that old Cutco set as good as it gets?
 
Cutco is made for people like your parents. If they don't plan on keeping the knife sharp then a serrated knife is their best bet.
 
A Victorinox chefs knife and a couple of their serrated paring knives would be perfect.
 
I bought a very modestly priced stainless-steel santoku from Jon at JKI for my mother, which probably doesn't go through her dishwasher, but definitely sits in her sink and drip dries on a regular basis. It doesn't appear on his website, but you might give him a call to see what he recommends for your parents. Plus, assuming Sara is back on her feet, it will arrive with a very fancy tissue paper wrap job!
 
A Victorinox chefs knife and a couple of their serrated paring knives would be perfect.

That was my first thought on the chef's knife -- it's inexpensive enough that it won't be too much of a crime if they destroy it; and the synthetic handle would even hold up through the dishwasher, if they did that.

But then my understanding is that it doesn't particularly excel in terms of edge retention, so with super-rare sharpening, it'd end up being nice at first and then after a month or so, it'd be worse than the serrated Cutco knives.

It might be that, as a few of you said, the Cutco stuff really is best for them...
 
Buy them a decent stainless and sharpen it twice a year for them. They'll be happy and you'll have something fun to do during your visit.

Cheers
 
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