To prepare meals simply and easily, home chefs (that’d be you and me) need three things: fresh ingredients (preferably organic), well-honed and simple preparation techniques, and a few, high quality tools.
We’d add the life-changing Instant Pot, but we’ll save writing about this best-selling, homegrown Canadian device for another day.
Having the right equipment available makes the job of preparing breakfast, lunch or dinner that much easier. Whether it’s a well-seasoned cast iron frying pan, or baking dishes that have been passed down through the generations, great kitchenware makes preparing meals a near & utter joy.
Much has been written over the years about a kitchen’s one essential tool, used in the creation of virtually every dish, and that would be: the knife.
Good, sharp knives represent the single most important set of kitchen tools used in the creation of virtually every and any dish that you might wish to prepare. A sharp knife means more control and less slippage when you cut, leading to safer, more consistent slices. Plus, cutting with a sharp knife is something of an unadulterated joy! From mincing garlic and fine herbs, or slicing thick wide wedges from a fresh-baked loaf of bread, to the often tough job of peeling the skin off a cantaloupe, a truly sharp chef’s knife will help you get the job done, quickly, efficiently & - most importantly - safely.
In Vancouver, if you need your knives sharpened, knife sharpening aficionados have long known that the Sharpening House, at 511 West 7th Avenue in Vancouver - just west of Cambie, in the neighbourhood of Best Buy, Canadian Tire and Home Depot - is the place to go. Read the Yelp testimonials available in the link on the second line of this paragraph. Knives sharpened well (and repaired, if necessary) for as little as $7.
Now, of course, as a chef, one is supposed to learn to employ a diamond-sharp honing tool to keep our knives truly and well-sharpened (you’ve got one, right?) - anyway, for VanRamblings this seems like a little bit of too much work. Don’tcha think? Who knows about the future, though?
VanRamblings has long believed that the “big things” in life have a way of working themselves out, but it is the “little things”, the nagging annoyances that come with everyday life that when resolved bring the most, if only momentary, joy. Today, we’re going to let you in on a life-changing secret: the $4.50 Edgeware 50009 2-Stage Edge Grip Knife Sharpener, available through Amazon.ca, with free shipping! Take a gander at the videos above.
The Edgeware 50009 2-Stage Edge Grip Knife Sharpener works as advertised, a simple, straightforward, reliable, ‘you get far more out of the use of this utterly essential knife sharpening tool than you paid for it’ joy. VanRamblings believes that you’ll find this kitchen staple one of the most rewarding kitchen tools in your kitchen repertoire of essential products, and one that you’ll find you use to great satisfaction multiple times a day.
VanRamblings’ friend, Norquay community organizer, General UBC Librarian Emeritus, and VIFF aficionado, Joseph Jones, has taken us to task for promoting the pecuniary interests of Jeff Bezos and his worker-exploiting online behemoth, Amazon, by deigning to suggest that even expending $4.50 for the Edgeware Knife Sharpener is as poorly thought out and demeaning of worker interests recommendation as we could possibly make.
Of course, Joseph is entirely correct, and the person of honour and integrity we know him to be. Joseph has come up with what he considers to be a far superior — if somewhat costlier, at $19.95 — alternative to the Edgeware product we recommended above: the Chestnut Tools ‘all-purpose carbide wonder’ (Joseph’s words) Universal Sharpening Tool, available at Lee Valley Tools, 1180 S.E. Marine Drive in Vancouver, just east of the Knight Street turnabout, the indispensable, local economy and non-exploiting worker supporting company offering a principled place to shop, for a product that is in all likelihood a superior product, and one that will last a lifetime.
VanRamblings being the pauper that we are, we’ll have to save up a bit o’ the old do re mi to set aside for the purchase of the Chestnut Tools Universal Sharpener, perhaps as a birthday present for ourselves. And for our treasured VanRamblings readers, you now have a principled knife sharpening alternative to the worker exploiting Bezos-Amazon product.
