Men, Tools, and Addictions

A couple months ago my friend Jeff and I were having this conversation when the topic of knife sharpeners came up. It seemed we’d both found the task of keeping a knife sharp untenable and spent a few minutes comparing notes. He has far more experience than I do, even complaining at one point he maintained a bone yard of ineffective knife sharpeners crowding the back of some closet. I only have three sharpeners none of which work very well. The conversation took a turn though and I forgot about my interest in sharp kitchen knives.

This past Sunday I threw a few hot dogs on the grill then began slicing up a dill pickle. Gretchen and I prefer ours with a couple slices of pickle, she with catsup and me with both catsup and spicy mustard. And I should say “attempted” to slice up a dill pickle because my knife was so dull it simply squashed it to the point of splitting rather than actually slicing. I tried a second knife with the same result and ended up finishing the job with a large bread knife which, did the trick but left me frustrated with the idea I owned the right tool for the job but said tool was in less than optimum shape.

I called Jeff.

He was at my house in 15 minutes flat bringing along the best of the bone yard and explaining, “This one will do the job but for me, it just takes too long to get there.” After about 10 minutes working on one of my knives I agreed and we spent the next few minutes talking knife sharpener shop. I showed him a few of my woodworking tools, which I keep razor sharp and we agreed it was what we’d expect out of a good kitchen knife. “The problem is,” I explained, “that I have a really nice jig for sharpening hand plane blades and chisels but it won’t work for a knife.” This led us to the internet where I showed him what most would consider the penultimate of tool sharpeners and happens to offer a knife sharpening attachment. This is a sharpener that also carries a price to match.

A couple of hours later I got an email from my friend Jeff explaining he was doing everything in his power to avoid what he termed, “A visa event.”

I responded with a video link and second review. Just to push him over the edge.