Dealing with a non knife obsessed spouse in the kitchen

My wife and I both enjoy preparing food at home, however she does not share my obsession with Japanese knives and sharp edges. She is happy with an old cutco (gasp!) paring knife for cutting up vegetables and keeps it and an old oversharpened 6 inch wustohof on our custom magnetic knife rack surrounded by many beautiful knives that I have acquired over the past few years. I continue to find those two beat up knives in the dishwasher as well. She seems to like to use them in spite of having tried the quality of the others on the knife rack. To add to my distress s:scared4:he has no interest in learning better knife skills. What am I to do....

How do others on the forum deal with non knife obsessed spouses while cooking at home? That cutco is killing me:knife:.

Keep some 'crappy' old knife for them and hope that they do not abuse the nice knives
Seems to work !

If mama is happy, everybody is happy. Your not finding your knives in the dishwasher are you? Accept the things you cannot change.

Besides, you can look at the cutco or you can look at rusted and chipped 'nice' knives.

I agree, gotta keep mama happy. No, she doesn't put mine in the dishwasher, but I have not been able to convince her to come to the dark side and use the 'good' knives. I'd be happy if she picked out a small gyuto to use.

Do you let others at home use your knives?

daveb said:

If mama is happy, everybody is happy. Your not finding your knives in the dishwasher are you? Accept the things you cannot change.

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wise advise. "Accept the things you can not change" and find happiness in your mind. ^^

Start small. Maybe a stainless petty, not too big or intimidating. Nothing with a handle that's too big either.

Is there any type of knife she'd like?
Overall, her enjoying her old knives and cleaning them in the DW is not that bad. Much better than messing up the nice knives. Though I totally understand where you're coming from . . .

I know your pain. Just getting into Japanese knives and recently purchased my first gyuto. My wife doesn't understand as she cant comprehend why I need so many grills and smokers.
My wife doesn't use my gyuto but does use the cheap chef knife I have. its too big for her so getting read to get a funayukis for her to use.

Well, for what it's worth, I use an old cutco paring knife. :bigeek: I like its shape, keep it sharp, and hand wash it.

Clearly, the knives your wife likes have a high Wife Acceptance Factor (WAF). A high WAF is good, a low WAF is bad. Be happy that this WAF came so inexpensively!

I've purchased some very cool knives for my wife. Petty and mini Gyutos. Waste if $$. She goes to a $5 Oxy Mini Chef that I keep pretty sharp for her, and a serrated tomatoe knife. She scares the crap out if he when she uses anything . As a former chef, she is intimidated by me in the kitchen, regardless of how I behave. Heaven forbid she might actually take a little instruction on knife technique or cooking. At least she understands my knives can't stay wet and none ever go near the dishwasher. I have celebrated cooking with my friends my whole life. She has zero interest . She's a good mom, but it's unfortunatly she can't share my enthusiasm for knives or cooking. On the other hand, pocketbooks do absolutely nothing for me.

Mrmnms said:

She's a good mom, but it's unfortunatly she can't share my enthusiasm for knives or cooking. On the other hand, pocketbooks do absolutely nothing for me.

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Haha! My wife mentioned the purse thing when I mentioned this thread. I actually like that my wife has zero interest in cooking, no competition in the kitchen and that space is 100% mine. She loves good food, though.

She is relegated to the microwave which we are both more than happy about.

My wife enjoys cooking but is too scared to use my J knives as she sees them as my toys and doesn't want to damage them. Plus i think there is a feels to sharp factor to them, even though i try keep my other scanpan set sharp for her.

Ultimately she is the dessert queen of the house and i look after most of the other cooking so it works for us. I just need to get more excuses to keep feeding the habit.

I bought mine a set from jck in stainless...210 gyuto, 180 santuko, and 120 petty. I have since moved them off to our fifth wheel, and bought her a 165 wantanabe santuko and nikiri. She adopted my ealy 150 petty as well, although she really wants another 120.

My problem is keeping her off my good knife...I have a 240 wantanabe Kira tip guyato that I love and it's just blue 2. She has stuck it in the knife rack twice now wet......just spent 2 hours polishing it tonight to het the patina off and the rust spots along the edge.

So far she hasn't even touched my blue 1 knives.

Over time I am going to build up another good stainless set for her.

Sharp knives do effect the taste of your food. If she's using dull knives she's breaking the cells, spilling all your juices out, ruining the food. So just tell her that her food tastes better when she uses proper tools. Her salads and meats will also keep longer since they've been properly cut and won't oxidize as fast.

And of course her dull knives are much more dangerous.

I know you mean well Joe, but if tell that to my wife, she'd laugh at me...not about the sharp knife, she cut herself a couple weeks ago. I appreciate what you're saying.

Ok so since having my new knives things.. are different in the kitchen. Slicing and dicing is effort less , life is easier.... I went to the
Kitchen last night to find the Mrs cutting with a cheap ass knife we have... and it looked so awkward! time consuming but she still
Will not use the sharp knives.... strange stuff.

slash said:

Ok so since having my new knives things.. are different in the kitchen. Slicing and dicing is effort less , life is easier.... I went to the
Kitchen last night to find the Mrs cutting with a cheap ass knife we have... and it looked so awkward! time consuming but she still
Will not use the sharp knives.... strange stuff.

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Same here.

Or just do what I did when I moved in with my girlfriend. I just tossed her knives and replaced then with mine. Took her awhile to get use to them and is probably still adjusting. But at least now she can tell when I've sharpened her knife. Then again I live in Japan and my girlfriend is Japanese, so it's not like I'm twisting her arm to use Japanese knives

IndoorOutdoorCook said:

Start small. Maybe a stainless petty, not too big or intimidating. Nothing with a handle that's too big either.

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x2. My wife started using a 150 petty, then a 210 Hiromoto gyuto. She still defaults a lot to a 180 Miyabi that has a belly bigger than even mine, but every now and then she'll use the HHH midtech gyuto or the 240 DT ITK gyuto. She told me two weeks ago that the DT is now her favorite (sorry Randy!) She also has a full HHH custom 180 petty, but she babies that one.

My wife couldn't care less about knives when she moved in. Slowly but surely I started replacing the old western Fiskars etc knives with Japanese ones. I even got a small 150mm Anryu Petty for my wife. Sharpened it for her and every once in a while when my wife was cooking I would hint either to try the good knives or to correct her grip, tehcnique. Now I think the even likes the sharp ones! But only the small ones, nothing bigger than 150mm. It's been a gradual process of getting used to a proper knife.

brianh said:

I actually like that my wife has zero interest in cooking, no competition in the kitchen and that space is 100% mine. She loves good food, though.

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same here!

malexthekid said:

My wife enjoys cooking but is too scared to use my J knives as she sees them as my toys and doesn't want to damage them. Plus i think there is a feels to sharp factor to them

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my wife is scared of my knives, I think it is a mixture of not wanting to damage anything, fear of sharpness and the size. I have smaller knives too, a 180 German chef knife, nothing fancy like the J knives but she cuts everything with a small Tupperware (!!!) paring knife or a serrated Victorinox tomato knife. She simply doesn't care, and it's OK for me. She doesn't enjoy being in the kitchen as much as I do, and I understand it would be a waste of money to buy a cute small wife knife just to make ME feel better. She wouldn't use it anyway!

daddy yo yo said:

same here!

my wife is scared of my knives, I think it is a mixture of not wanting to damage anything, fear of sharpness and the size. I have smaller knives too, a 180 German chef knife, nothing fancy like the J knives but she cuts everything with a small Tupperware (!!!) paring knife or a serrated Victorinox tomato knife. She simply doesn't care, and it's OK for me. She doesn't enjoy being in the kitchen as much as I do, and I understand it would be a waste of money to buy a cute small wife knife just to make ME feel better. She wouldn't use it anyway!

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Exactly, why impose your (lets face it, very niche) hobby on others, whoever they may be, who are not interested.

So i recently purchased a Tanaka Petty for the wife to use. figured it would be perfect for her: cheap, SS, light, and small. It happened to come in right before our anniversary as well. The Tanaka has some really nice hand done kanji and i told her i had the knife engraved to say "Happy Anniversary" . hehe. Am i bad person? i will tell her in a few weeks once it would be considered funny.

DaninMD said:

So i recently purchased a Tanaka Petty for the wife to use. figured it would be perfect for her: cheap, SS, light, and small. It happened to come in right before our anniversary as well. The Tanaka has some really nice hand done kanji and i told her i had the knife engraved to say "Happy Anniversary" . hehe. Am i bad person? i will tell her in a few weeks once it would be considered funny.

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You're such a romantic! Let us know how it goes when you tell her . . . I guess a lot depends on other aspects of your relationship. I'm guessing it may not be a complete shock to her since she should know you pretty well by now.

toddnmd said:

You're such a romantic! Let us know how it goes when you tell her . . . I guess a lot depends on other aspects of your relationship. I'm guessing it may not be a complete shock to her since she should know you pretty well by now.

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Im sure i will get the "look" and an eye roll. at least i'll be laughing.

You may survive til your next anniversary.

this problem wouldnt even be a blip on my radar.

life sounds pretty good for the OP.

I recognize my post is a first world problem. I appreciate all the interesting responses. I guess in the larger sense this forum where we discuss the minutiae of kitchen knives is analogous. I might wager that 99.9% of the rest of humanity has no conception of what we are interested in as we banter on the forum.

Livin' the dream!

I'm in exactly the same boat and accept the fact my wife -who is a very good cook- likes her Cutco.

I got her a Tojiro DP nakiri which she sometimes uses. She perceives it as more manageable and friendly than the larger gyuto's.

If Cutco was reasonably priced and the hype and sales tactics weren't so obnoxious, no one would hate them. I use an Arkansas oil stone to keep them sharp. Everyone's happy.