Prepping vegetables is no longer a chore; it is an exhilarating, slightly dangerous, fully engaged experience! My new Hattori chef's knife arrived from Japan: a gleaming silver art piece of layered Damascus steel both beautiful and wickedly sharp. Touch the edge to a cucumber and just the weight of the knife propels it cleanly through to the cutting board, no effort required. The slices are translucently thin. But this is not a knife for the careless; one slip could mean the loss of a digit. After all, generations of Japanese sword smiths are behind the crafting of this blade. Gruesomely, the sharpness of the Japanese samurai sword was tested by seeing how many human bodies it could cut through in a single swipe. I'm keenly reminded of this when the Hattori comes close to my fingers; slicing vegetables becomes an example of the exhortation to "be in the moment". One has to be extra alert and focussed when using a knife like this, so I experience the knife, the vegetable, the cutting board and my fingers with heightened awareness--is this the true Zen of cooking? This is not a low maintenance piece of cutlery. You cannot simply use a sharpening steel or commercial knife sharpener. It requires three whetstones; five passes back and forth across the first stone starting with the tip and working up towards the handle, again with the second, then the third. Sharpening takes about 20 minutes: a commitment to the upkeep of the blade, but resulting in pure pleasure for those of us who love the process of cooking as much as savoring the result.
I've had two other pieces of Japanese cutlery in my kitchen for years, both of which were purchased in L.A.'s Little Tokyo: a yanagiba for delicate slicing of fish for sushi and a Shigemitsu deba bocho for the heavier fish prep. Otherwise, my block set of stainless steel has plodded along for many years. Why upgrade my cutlery now? Because after a lifetime of learning how to create the tastes I want, I'm looking for a better presentation--clean, precise edges being part of a polished look. It took two days of intensive research online to decide on the Hattori HD 7 Gyuto and the soon to arrive Misono 130mm Sweden Steel Petty.
Two days' worth of research yields only the tip of the iceberg in terms of what there is to know about chef's knives. In brief, in the European tradition, there were essentially 3 types of knives used in prepping vegetables: the "cook's knife" or "French knife" which is long (around 300mm or less) and broad with a curved belly making a 'rocking-horse' motion while slicing, the paring knife (around 190mm) that fits easily into the hand and used mainly, as can be surmised by the name, for paring and decorative work, and the utility knife which is halfway between the two. Knives were commonly made of carbonized steel, which takes a very sharp edge but required vigilant maintenance to avoid rust and to keep the edge. The advent of stainless steel eliminated the need for such rigorous maintenance but the edge was hard to keep honed. Modern stainless for knives is made of steel with added carbon to try and improve the knife edge; there are dozens of types of steel: Cromova 18, Cowry-X, MC66, etc. and several chef's forums online where the merits of each is debated (
ChefTalk is one). Layered steel is discussed below.
There is another line of kitchen knives originating in Japan. During the US occupation of Japan after WWII, the creation of samurai swords was prohibited and the generations of knowledge about the hand-forging of blades was nearly lost. Some of the sword smith families, primarily in the city of Sakai carried this knowledge forward into the present and are making kitchen knives in the same tradition. A truly hand-made chef's knife costs thousands of dollars, so they also manufacture affordable knives using factory manufacture with some hand finishing.
Dozens of specialized knives appear in a Japanese professional kitchen, including a Takohiki just for preparing octopus and a Udon-Kiri for slicing noodles. The main tools for prepping vegetables in a Japanese kitchen are hybrids of the tradtional and modern. A Santoku is the "cook's knife" equivalent (the Japanese style is a Gyuto), a Nakiri is a thinner version of the Chinese cleaver and the Petty spans the size from paring to utility knife. The traditional Japanese knife (though they now make traditional forms with European edges) is straight on one edge and beveled on the other, or beveled just 30 percent on one side and 70 degrees on the other. This also makes a sharper edge possible and gives a cleaner cut. European style knives are bevelled evenly, 50/50, like a "V".
What made samurai swords so sharp and capable of the grisly body tests described above was the technique of lamination and layering. The Japanese discovered a solution to the dilemma of steel--that softer steel is sharper but isn't as durable and hard steel, though it withstands shock and force better is not as sharp. They came up with a method of encasing a core of softer steel inside a protective outer sheath with the soft steel exposed at the edge for maximum sharpness. Their swords were not only layered from hard outer to softer inside, but each of the steels was hammered out repeatedly and folded over, creating layers within the steel and driving out any impurities that could weaken the metal. Small crystals in the metal, some barely visible to the naked eye, give the hand-forged Japanese blade a misty glow, the patterns of which are used by fine art sword experts and collectors to assess the age and provenance of a samurai sword. If you have the chance to see a fine example of this artistry, please appreciate the beauty that has gone into the creation of it. There are some fine blades in the "Lords of the Samurai"
exhibit at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco.
(*note: since this post, I bought a Shun Chef's knife at
Sur la Table and have been using it the most of all my large knives as it has more weight than the Hattori, making it more useful for the wider range of cutting jobs. I still love to use my Hattori Gyuto for fine knife work with vegetables. I also bought an inexpensive Swiss
Kuhn Rikon that never needs sharpening and use it more than my expensive Wusthoff or Misono. Just $9.95!)
Two reasons for coming to Santa Barbara in September! Touring & Tasting is having a Northwest Wine Tasting Sept. 9th from 5:30-7 pm--only $20, half of which can be used toward purchase of bottles of wine you like during the tasting. And there will be a Warehouse Wine Sale Sept. 12th from 2-5 pm with unbelievably low prices. I stocked up during the last warehouse sale and this will be even better as the wines are at 60% discount and lower! Come early as some wines sell out. Call 800-850-4370 ext. 100 for more information or click here Fall is gorgeous in the Santa Ynez valley, the grapes are getting close to harvest, the days are sunny with a bit of a autumn crispness in the air, the you-pick apple farms are open, there are cherries and flowers for sale in the roadside stands along the rural roads between wineries, and you can stop and taste estate grown olive oil and enjoy wonderful meals. 
The Los Olivos Cafe is a favorite, but we drove out this week to try the new Root 246 restaurant in Solvang that's been the center of a lot of food blog buzz. (read Gayot's review) Chef Bradley Ogden is renown for his "New American" cuisine of fresh, highest quality ingredients and as being the winner of James Beard's "Best Chef of California", among other awards. The restaurant is elegant but not stuffy with comfy upholstered chairs, dark wood floor and recessed lighting. 
We tried two salads: the Roots’ farms baby bib lettuce with goat cheese, pears and honey lavender pistachios and the golden beet and artichoke salad with sherry vinaigrette, then the short rib stew with a parsley onion dumpling and the Ono "Nicoise" with julienned beans and olive tapenade, 
finishing with the butterscotch pudding "taster". Everything was fresh and lovely to both the eye and the palate. I prefer my beets roasted until they are carmelized, but there were no complaints with the delicate beet salad that had the perfect touch of vinegar in the dressing to complement their sweetness. The fish was cooked to perfection, moist and flavorful even if the tapenade overwhelmed it a bit. But, these were minor notes. The dumpling was fluffy and melt-in-your-mouth and the pudding to die for. The "taster" desserts are just a few mouthfuls--just enough sweetness to end the meal without feeling overstuffed--and at $4 for our taster, an affordable decadence.
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