Bit of a splurge....

After a week of biz travel, I arrived home to the results of a splurge over the weekend:


Watanabe Nakiri, Henckel's Slicer (a gift from a forum member!), Gesshin 400, Gesshin 1000, diamond plate.

Does anyone else feel a little guilty for tearing through the amazing wrapping job that Sara@JKI does?!

Also, Kudos to the previous owner of the Nakiri for a very fine wrapping job there as well.

Have lots of fun to pack into this weekend!

Nice haul!

Zwiefel said:

Does anyone else feel a little guilty for tearing through the amazing wrapping job that Sara@JKI does?!

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Every time, yes.

You didn't mention the best part: "On Food and Cooking!"

Nice haul.

One of my favorite things in recent years since becoming interested in knives is arriving at home to find a box full of goodies waiting for me. Feel like a kid during christmas all over again.

Zwiefel said:

Does anyone else feel a little guilty for tearing through the amazing wrapping job that Sara@JKI does?!

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For sure! it's even worse when you pick up locally and your goodies still get wrapped.

First nakiri?

Can't think of a better knife for the Indian veg I think you cook all the time.

Cutty Sharp said:

First nakiri?

Can't think of a better knife for the Indian veg I think you cook all the time.

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Yup, first nakiri....and lots of veg around here--speaking of, have you acquired a taste for hing yet? :razz:

Just spent a sec with a few potatoes and jalepenos...this is the first knife since my SIH that make me go, "wow, a knife can do that?" Amazing....and beautiful.

Even my wife was astonished at the performance with potatoes. I hope I don't become a cleaver bigot like certain members on the forum!

TamanegiKin said:

For sure! it's even worse when you pick up locally and your goodies still get wrapped.

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I gave two JKI knives to a friend as wedding presents. I didn't even bother to box them and wrap them - I just gave them with the JKI wrapping. No way they were going to get a nicer wrapping than they already had.

mhlee said:

I gave two JKI knives to a friend as wedding presents. I didn't even bother to box them and wrap them - I just gave them with the JKI wrapping. No way they were going to get a nicer wrapping than they already had.

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True dat!

Zwiefel said:

Yup, first nakiri....and lots of veg around here--speaking of, have you acquired a taste for hing yet? :razz:

Just spent a sec with a few potatoes and jalepenos...this is the first knife since my SIH that make me go, "wow, a knife can do that?" Amazing....and beautiful.

Even my wife was astonished at the performance with potatoes. I hope I don't become a cleaver bigot like certain members on the forum!

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Nice scores, and when you find a page in the book that you really like you can just slice the corner of the page off with a paper test

I still love nakiris, and it was also my wife's for 'wow' knife. I think the lack of a tip made it feel less threatening, and she still uses that knife the most of all my knives. I don't use it as much as I used to, but when I do, it is a load of fun.

k.

Awesome acquisitions. Awesome book I love mine.

Nice haul. I'd like to pick up the updated copy of OFAC... I have his second book as well, believe it's called "The Curious Cook" but i'll have to dig it out.

I made a wishlist on amazon, based on book recommendations here...this is the first purchase from the list. I also have:

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

Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking

The Zen of Fish: The Story of Sushi, from Samurai to Supermarket

Some of my favorites are as follows:

Pretty much anything by James Peterson; he covers a variety of subjects from french food, sauces, soups, vegetables, seafood... all very well written.

The Flavor Bible by Dornenburg and Page; they've written a couple others.. The Soul of a Chef I read many years ago was pretty good. I'd like to check out "What to Drink with what you eat" some time as well.

Charcuterie by Brian Polcyn; excellent if you're into salting curing etc.

Elements of Taste by Gray Kunz; awesome book that's out of print and pricey but worth it if you can find it for under $100. I had to replace my original copy and it cost me around 70 bucks which i gladly paid.

The Culinaria series; covers different regions of the world and full of information, not just recipes. Very interesting read aside from straight recipes. Looks as if they are reprinting the series in paperback so most if not all should be available on Amazon.

i've collected tons of books over the years but those are some that stick out. i have many a chef book that are cool to flip through but prefer those that deal with the building blocks and back them up with recipes as examples.

Awesome stuff!

you have good taste when it comes to cookbooks

Added most of those to my wishlist...I couldn't find a Culinaria about India though...they did have SE asia...put that on the list instead.

nice stuff! i splurged too, lately, with a new knife, a new medium stone, a Viking saucier, and some decent 2mm copper cookware. this year has been tight, financially, so it feels nice to buy a few things.

Not sure if there is one on India; the last three I tracked down were Germany, Russia and SE Asia, all were in softcover. They're a scaled down a bit (size not content) from the hardbacks but impressive none the less.

The CIA also puts together solid books on the fundamentals. Their Garde Manger book is quite good....or was I should say. I haven't seen an updated copy but I can't imagine it went downhill. Covers everything in the cold kitchen and is helpful for those that want to get an idea of some of the classic al preparations. Their baking book is spot on as well. I'm not a pastry guy but I have a copy of that as well as Bo Friberg's pastry chef books which are huge and cover pretty much everything you could want. Between those three I can fake it well enough to give the PC time away and not look like a complete idiot.

Chef books would be last on my list but those from Keller, Trotter, Mina, Portale, Nobu, Susur Lee, Wong and MP White are some of the tops on my shelves.

A couple of other notables... Ideas in Food by Aki Kamozawa and H. Alexander Talbot. Kind of a scaled down version of Modernist Cuisine and far cheaper. They have a cool website as well.

A couple of books geared toward Asian cuisine; Spoonful of Ginger, and Hot Sour Salty Sweet. Not sure of authors off the top of my head but a quick search should handle that.

For Mexican Food Diana Kennedy has great suff if you're into that.

Heston Blumenthal has some good stuff too....there's the Fat Duck book and then another one covering some simple basics thats pretty cool in that he experiments with say, several different potatoes in search of the best for mashed or fries and gets right into it. Not flashy like his resto book but pretty cool and a bit scientific without going completely chemical.

Can't leave out those such as Boulud, Ripert, Jean-Georges, Gagnaire and for nostalgia's sake our very own Julia.

Years ago I had a chance to pick up Michel Bras' book and passed thinking I'd grab it later. I did. Think about it again for a while only to discover it was out of print an sellin for several hundred dollars. Sonuva.

Enjoy your new goodies! You inspired me to order a copy of OFAC for myself!:thumbsup:

That's a nice set of goodies in that picture! I just wanted tolook something up in the McGee and realized I had boxed it up and stored it with all the other cook books It's a great book to have around! And the knives look nice also, have fun with them!

Stefan

That book was my food science text book. Its damn near a science degree level book lol.

Love authenic Mexican,not americanized wt. bunch of cheese thrown on top.Indian,Thai,Viet,Korean,Chinese,Japanese,Italian,Middle Eastern,French anything but my own heritage Scottish.

And those chicken's on a spit in Germany that you standup to eat,that & hoppi beer.:cook:

keithsaltydog said:

Love authenic Mexican,not americanized wt. bunch of cheese thrown on top.Indian,Thai,Viet,Korean,Chinese,Japanese,Italian,Middle Eastern,French anything but my own heritage Scottish.

And those chicken's on a spit in Germany that you standup to eat,that & hoppi beer.:cook:

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Damn....now I'm hungry!

I spent time on 2 knives today with the 2 new Gesshin stones. I never thought I'd hear myself say it...but that 400 cuts REALLY quick. It took about 5 minutes to do what my previous 1k gesshin stone couldn't do in 20. Very pleased with both the 400 and the 1k Gesshin. Going to take a bit of work out of my sharpening tasks.

Put nice new edges on the cck1303 and the henckel's 8" chefs.

Charred animal flesh served on a giant skewer and hop laden beer are two of my favorite things...

Some great books mentioned in this thread, thanks guys. I've been on a little kick from Amazon lately as well. I picked up the latest revision of "On Food and Cooking" & Keller's "Under Pressure" which are both awesome. And I'm now simultaneously reading Marc Vetri's "Rustic Italian", and "Momofuku." All are great books that I'd highly recommend.

And whoever mentioned "The Fat Duck," "Elements of Taste" and "Hot, Sour, Salty, Sweet," thank you! I had to go down to the basement and pull those back out. It's been a while since I thumbed through any of them, but they kick ass too.

I gotta put in a plug for Tetsuya Wakuda's eponymous book as well as Rob Feenies "Lumiere," both pretty old but still applicable nonetheless.

Zwiefel said:

my previous 1k gesshin stone

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That should have been "non-gesshin."

I splurged myself after sandy. It feels good doesn't it.