Rock beats scissors

  So yesterday was Super J's birthday and my present was the tiramisu cake I told you about in the last post and actually managed to remember to photograph it as you can see below. Though I was a guest yesterday, I still managed to find my way to the kitchen to help out a bit. It wasn't a huge task, just throw a guacamole together. Easy peasy.

  The kitchen is adequate but the place is rented so you work with what you've got. There is a chef's knife there but cos it was so blunt, I brought it home to give it a lick on the stone. That was a little while ago. Guacamole needs a pile of finely chopped onions so once again I found the knife back in my grasp.

  The first thing that I realised is that I'm so used to carrying knives with me, that this was the first time in I've no idea how long that I was using a blunt knife. Though blunt was normal a long time ago, using one last night was a very alien feeling. My blades go through everything with an effortlessness that I completely took for granted until last night. How did I manage? How does everyone else manage?

  I have no idea of the answer to either of those questions but more pressing was the difficulty I was experiencing in coercing the blade to get through the onion. Instead of slicing, as a sharp blade does, I was squashing the onion until the blade broke through with sheer brute force. This didn't make for very even cutting and regularity. And then the inevitable happened.

  It is often said a blunt knife is more dangerous than a sharp one because they are harder to control, so you can guess what happened next. The knife took an unexpected left turn and straight down the edge of my finger. Paradoxically, because the knife was blunt, I still have all of my ten fingers. Had it been one of mine, I'd have lost the tip of one but I got away with a nick. What didn't help is that the kitchen came equipped with a cute marble board. I'm sure its original purpose was as a serving platter but it gets used as a chopping board and as you can imagine, the knife suffers. Super J will be getting a second birthday present soon; a trip for her knife to visit my stone. Rock may beat scissors but stone loves knife.

Kirk out

Chefsebastian.com