ISBN13: 9780061188480 Condition: New Notes: BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed

	Product Description: Why are most of us so woefully uninformed about our kitchen knives? We are intimidated by our knives when they are sharp, annoyed by them when they are dull, and quietly ashamed that we don't know how to use them with any competence. For a species that has been using knives for nearly as long as we have been walking upright, that's a serious problem. An Edge in the Kitchen is the solution, an intelligent and delightful debunking of the mysteries of kitchen knives once and for all. If you can stack blocks, you can cut restaurant-quality diced vegetables. If you can fold a paper airplane, you can sharpen your knives better than many professionals. Veteran cook Chad Ward provides an in-depth guide to the most important tool in the kitchen, including how to choose the best kitchen knives in your price range, practical tutorials on knife skills, a step-by-step section on sharpening, and more——all illustrated with beautiful photographs throughout. Along the way you will discover what a cow sword is, and why you might want one; why chefs are abandoning their heavy knives in droves; and why the Pinch and the Claw, strange as they may sound, are in fact the best way to make precision vegetable cuts with speed and style. An Edge in the Kitchen is the one and only guide to the most important tool in the kitchen.

• Mastering Knife Skills: The Essential Guide to the Most Important Tools in Your Kitchen (with DVD)
• Japanese Kitchen Knives: Essential Techniques and Recipes
• Complete Guide to Sharpening
• Shun DM0708 Combination Whetstone Knife Sharpener
• Knives Cooks Love: Selection. Care. Techniques. Recipes.

Rating : - A Joy to Read. Especially for the Knife Ethusiasts
This book is a great read. It is educational and humourous. I laughed more than a few times reading it. Who would have thought a kitchen cutlery book can be so funny.

Unlike most kitchen knife books which focus on cutting techniques, this book discusses various topics, ranging from "How to choose a knife" to "How to cut with a knife" to "How to maintain and sharpen a knife". It takes on a more comprehensive approach.

I will be honest. If all you care for is the knife cutting technique, then there are better books out there. Of the ~280 pages in this book, only ~80 pages are dedicated to knife cutting techniques. However, if you are interest in the historical evolution of kitchen knives, the tradeoff between steel strength and steel toughness, the important properties to look for in buying a knife, knife edge maintance practices, methods to create a sharper knife edge than the factory geometry, as well as knife cutting techniques, then this is the book.

For example, Chad debunked the idea that "a knife needs to have a full tang to be secure". If ancient swordmen can use partial tang swords to bash shields and piece armours, then it is absurb to insist that a full tang is a requirement for slicing a chicken breast.

I knew 80% of the materials in this book before reading it, and yet I find it a joy to read. Now, I will admit that Chad can easily condense this book by 25% if he took out the interesting historical stories and funny jokes. A few people may prefer that. They may want a more serious and more direct book. However, I know I would have a tough time reading through this book if it wasn't written this way. It is such an entertaining book.