Recent content by rickg17

See, for me the rather drastic changes over a short time is actually a disincentive to buy Mazaki. I get the "it's handmade, there will be some variation..." thing but having the profile change so much in a few months... nah. I'll just watch for now and if he settles on something he likes, see...

In your shoes I'd be tempted to buy a couple of different knives to see what you like best. Easy thoughts... Wakui, Tanaka in the $200 range. Kochi from JKI in the $250-300 range. (https://www.japaneseknifeimports.com) Based on a few meals with a 165mm petty, I'd be tempted to give the Munetoshi...

Got any logic......... DB edit: Rick - you may be right - but like a lot of things it's not what you say but how you say it. We don't play that way. I'm sure the OP got the gist of what your were saying.

I'd also add that technique will often trump blade i.e. the minor differences between blades will be overshadowed by someone's skill or lack thereof. I personally also think that spending more than $200-$250 on a blade is, for a home cook, a waste if viewed in strictly performance terms. It...

$400 each is too much when starting. I've recently (in the last year or so) been dipping my toes in the J-knife world and here's what I did: 210mm Wakui Migaki gyuto. Love this. Relatively thin but not laser-ish. Sharp out of the box and a real joy to use. 165mm Hiraki from Tadefusa. I like...

Well... as one of the guys who replied on the MoccaMaster, guess what I use as a grinder? yep, the Encore. I like it fine. It's basic and I don't know how well it would do on a very fine espresso grind but for drip coffee it does a very good job. Grinds fast, cleans easily even if you dismantle...

165mm petty from Munetoshi, vis JNS. Ordered Thursday, arrived today. Lovely kurochi finish, fit looks great. Almost dinner time...

I have had one for several years. Mine has the bottom hot plate and a regular glass carafe pot. Makes very good coffee in 4-5 minutes from start to done. Easy to disassemble and clean. Looks basic, built like a tank, makes good coffee if you give it good beans. Can't ask for much more.

I suppose, but people always call the serrated knife in these discussions a bread knife, indicating use as well as style and for me a serrated knife used to slice bread isn't really part of prep, but of serving. It's an artificial distinction in many ways (is a paring knife used to slice...

This stuff is just brilliant - thanks for finding and sharing these.

I think we're talking about 3 different categories: I'd call them "need" vs "can work with" vs "No real compromises" Need: Face it, for most of us we could get by with a single knife in the gyuto range (could be a santoku, etc) for the vast majority of what we do at home. It wouldn't be optimal...

Rather than list specific knives I think of it like this - A home cook really just needs 1) something to break down meat and veggies into the shapes you need for a dish, 2) you need a smaller version of this to do finer work like removing silverskin, etc and for some people a truly small knife...

Yeah, got those. With another petty on the way.

OK so in other threads the consensus seems to be that you can't get a good deba in the $100 or so range, that to get anything worthy, it's going to cost more than a comparable gyuto etc. So I wrote off the whole deba thing - I don't do anything like breaking down fish enough to justify $250+ for...

I wouldn't cook then freeze. Theres no real time savings there. To me, the convenience is to be able to do what you did ("bought 8 really nice looking thick-cut pork rib chops on sale yesterday at whole foods. I tossed two into each bag with a spring of rosemary and some garlic (salt and...