An Edge in the Kitchen: The Ultimate Guide to Kitchen Knives -- How to Buy Them, Keep Them Razor Sharp, and Use Them Like a Pro

Chad Ward - An Edge in the KitchenI own two books on kitchen knives and knife skills, this one and Weinstein's Mastering Knife Skills. Chad Ward's book is the best of the two by its breadth and wealth of information and is objectively a very good book.Physically, the book is a medium sized hard cover, well edited. There is a number of good B&W pictures through the book to illustrate specific points, and there's a central section of 48 pages of glossy color pictures depicting specific knife techniques (battonets vs. julienne, onion, tomatoes, cutting a chicken, butterflying a piece of meat, skinning salmon, carving a turkey, steeling a knife, several sharpening methods, etc).The book is organized as follows:1 - Choosing the right kitchen knife:This section is about 90 pages, so it's a sizeable part of the book. The author goes through the various knife types, costs, etc. Generally, Chad advocates staying away from knife block & sets, and explains that a home cook can do most everything with 3 knives: 8" to 10" chef, paring, and a serrated (or scalloped) bread knife. So his recommendation is to get the best of those. What is really helpful is that the author gives specific recommendations for all budgets - below $100, $200, or "the sky's the limit". Too many books just say "get what feels best". Chad goes beyond this to give a range of specific endorsements. This part also includes 10+ pages on cutting boards and how to take care of them.2 - Kitchen knife skills:This section is about 30 pages but also has most of the color pictures in the center section. This is where the key knife skill concepts are explained, how to hold the blade and the item to be cut, etc. This is similar to other knife skill books, but with one major improvements which is a few recipes to practice the skills. Those recipes are really welcome, and because they are basic recipes that can be used as base for a number of varied dishes, they are great recipes to include in this book.3 - Knife sharpening:This section is about 70 pages and covers the theory & science of knife sharpening as well as specific reviews and advices for several methods. Chad reviews the sharpening of Western as well as Japanese style knives, and several sharpeing systems (e.g., Spyderco, EdgePro, etc).At the end of the book are several pages of resources to buy knives, boards, sharpeners, etc.In short, I think this is a complete book that covers the key concepts of knife skills, but also addresses knife selection and care. If you buy only one kitchen knives & skill book, I would recommend it.

Chad Ward is a very good writer. By that I mean you need to know how to write for who you are writing: beginner, professional? This book is perfect for both, though, and for anybody that wants to get 'serious' fun in the kitchen. The information is accurate, well explained, and in a simple language. But, you get the very specifics too, in a very fun way. The structure of the book is great, and complete. Ward makes sure you know everything about knives, to truly appreciate them; to fall in love with them.Not only you get all the information to become a thorough expert in different kinds of steels, knives and professional self-sharpening, but also everything else related to knives: cutting boards (I hadn't realized how important they were until I read this book), knife storage, essential knife skills (I've been cutting veggies like crazy), safety and maintenance.Most notable for me was the third part of the book: all about self-sharpening at home. Instead of recommending to have your knives sharpened, Ward shows you how easy, but also how important and serious, self-sharpening your knives is. And how fun and interesting.Yes, there is a lot of information about all of this in the internet, but here's when good books make all the difference. Just get it, read it, then go to the internet, and you'll see what I mean.With 'An Edge in the Kitchen', I have learned the beauty of cutlery, and appreciate the tradition and craftsmanship within a knife, and it is amazing. It's a real and lasting motivation to either get you started in the kitchen or, if you are a pro or have been cooking for a while, to refresh all those great things that make what you do meaningful and beautiful.Thank you Chad.

I enjoyed this book. It was a good overview, well written, filled with good information, including the kind of practical detail on sharpening that helps a novice obtain good results. I purchased a Kindle edition, which does not appear to be available anymore for reasons unknown.A note on sharpening. I sharpen with Japanese waterstones. But whether you use watersontes or some other manual method, please beware that the type of sharpening recommended in this book is a lot of work. Not that its not worth it but prepare yourself for a lot of work.The reason is that, as the author explains, the factory puts a pretty obtuse edge (read wide) on most kitchen knives, say 40 degrees. Ward recommends you grind that edge down to something thinner, like 15 degrees. But to get an edge down from 40 degrees to 15 degrees requires grinding off a lot of steel. And steel, my friends, is hard. You will be astonished at the amount of grinding you have to do on stone to regrind the edge.I have taken a knife, an 8" Wusthof classic chef's knife that had already been ground once (more on that in a second) and went to grind it down to a 15 degree edge or so. I spent at least 90 minutes on my coarsest waterstone, a 220 grit. I then spent another hour at least working through my other three stones (1200, 4000, & 8000). Not only does it take a long time to grind away all that steel but it takes a fair amount of effort to polish that large edge as well. I did not do a compound bevel.I freely admit that I am still a relative novice - I have put maybe a half dozen knives through my waterstones and reground all of them. So for someone more experienced it may go faster.My recommendation then for waterstones is to make your lowest level stone the absolute coarsest thing you can find. It will take more time to polish out those coarse scratches later but the time you save grinding off steel to make the new edge angle will make up for it.Second, it is difficult to appreciate how quickly your knives are sharpened by an experienced professional using grinding wheels. I visited Bob Kramer's shop while on vacation. This was before he became a rock star of custom kitchen knives. He is incredibly nice. He went out of his way to show me his entire shop and operation. It was really cool. Back then, he still sharpened as part of his business. I brought along a new, inexpensive chef's knife that I wanted him to sharpen for me so that I could see how he did it. He went in a room, turned on about 6 grinding wheels, ranging from coarse to very fine (the last was a leather strop like contraption). Literally in 90 seconds total, maybe less, he had run the knife freehand over every wheel and it was razor sharp, ridiculously sharp. As in sharper than anything I have ever been able to create in any amount of time. Part of that is 25 years practice and part of that is having the right tool for the job.Why this story? If you want sharp knives, really sharp knives, and don't want to commit 40 hours to sharpening your whole drawer full, then send them out. The second benefit of this is that once the professional regrinds the blade, it is much easier to keep the edge sharp going forward.So Ward's book and his methods are sound but don't underestimate the amount of work for a good result.

Scritti in maniera scorrevole e pieno di dritte è un ottimo libro per addentrarsi in maniera più tecnica nel mondo dei coltelli da cucina e della loro affilatura

Libro bonito por el exterior, pero nada más que eso, la conclusión que sacas se podría haber escrito en una hoja, comparto las críticas y otros lectores respecto a las recetas no entiendo qué hacen en este libro, en conclusión mucha paja y poca técnica, el precio me parece excesivo por lo que tienes, me equivoqué al comprar éste libro.

Een klassieker over het onderwerp, toegankelijk, fraai vormgegeven. Prettig geprijsd.

Un guide complet pour qui voudrait apprendre à comprendre, utiliser et entretenir l'outil principal de notre quotidien, le couteau de cuisine. L'anglais reste abordable et la lecture agréable.

As a restaurant owner this book is just an unbelievable asset . now i understand all the technical jargon which salesmen unnecessary use while selling their products .I know what I want without being fooled. Great Book.