Each work day at noon I must eat or else I start to wobble. For the last few months I have been making myself a serious lunch salad at squint central. As you can see from the above picture, my salad contains, a little feta, two cucumbers, one red pepper, some lettuce, sprouts, two carrots, some broccoli, one tomato and two fake (veggie) pseudo-chicken breast thingies (Tivol). Once or twice a week I pop down to the supermarket downstairs and stock up on fresh vegetables and some feta cheese. A huge salad is only three points and that's only because the fake chicken pieces are one and a half each, but even us vegetarians need some protein. I love cutting veggies. I enter a trance and achieve a zen-like state at noon daily. The real secret to this, besides fresh vegetables is a sharp knife.I believe in sharp knives. We own some quality steel at home and I have the nice
Henckels on the right at work. In addition a decent sharpening stone is a must. Cutting salad with a sharp knife is a religious experience. Its just you and the produce and as you cube and dice, you play an active part in building something meaningful - your lunch. I think if more people stopped each day for a few minutes and got to touch what they were eating, the world would be a better place. There is something so inherently 100% about a knife you can shave with. I think I may just start a religion."Give me your tired, your dull,
Your unsharpened blades yearning to cut free,
The wretched refuse of your cutlery drawer
Send these, the slice-less, dishwasher-toast to me,
I lift my stone beside the kitchen door!"
(with thanks to Emma Lazarus and the Statue of Liberty)
5 comments:
I have the same Henckel chef's knife and it is, by far, my favorite knife of all time.
Now you see why I claim John taught me all I know.
So thaaaaat's where the knife got to.....
While shopping for our Henckels (while we still lived in Houston) I was a naive young man yearning to not cut my fingers with cheap knives John "earned" buying gas for the Acura. (or was it the Yamaha?)
Anyway, there I was in Macy's Cellar with the sales clerk, assembling my/our new collection. I asked the man which he preferred, the 6 inch or 8 inch boner, not yet having done any boning in the kitchen. He kindly replied, not being a size-queen, he preferred the 6 inch. We laughed, while my friend had to leave the store in a fit of hysterics. That was 1992, and we still use those marvelous knives. I take them with me if we rent vacation homes, since a good knife is hard to find.
I loved the poem. Brilliant!
Our Henckels were also bought at Macys's but in Sunnyvale. They were on sale. Best money ever spent in the kitchen. But, I always believed in good tools.
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