Christmas shopping in the UK

[Griffin NoName]

Hey thanks but he's building up a set of Global knives. I dont like the handles but they are good knives. They are expensive so I am probably the only person who will buy them for him so it will probably take him for ever to get a full set.

I have an electric carving knife which I really like. Ken Livingstone has not put a carving charge on them yet so I can afford to run it the few times a year I have a roast. 

[Sibling Chatty]

Does he have the G series or the GF?

GF is the tops, and a beautiful carver (I used one 3 years ago at a city-wide Thanksgiving feast in Houston, where I got to carve turkey for 3 straight hours) but, damn, they're expensive!!

They're also much better for meat than for poultry, but I wasn't going to fuss. Sort of like having the Bentley of cutlery, you know.

The tilt of the handles on the G series is...annoying.

(The latent kitchen-stuff freak in me is coming out...I must make it go back before I get all domesticated again!)

[Aggie]

Mmmmm ....   Henkels Four-Star....

Gave Mom and Dad an 8" **** chef's knife quite a few Christmases ago (along with some cheaper Henckels to fill out the set) and it's the only knife they like to use.

My favorite is still my $16 Cologne Series 6 1/2 Henckels Chinese Cleaver....  I don't think they make 'em any more.  Nice thin blade, but lots of depth for chopping and crushing with the flat.  I even carried one of these (I think it was a Berlin series) while backpacking in Australia and Malaysia; hostel knives are rubbish.  I used to be quite good at paring veggies with it. 

[Bluenose]

I use a set of Victorinox wooden handled, full tang knives I was given as a wedding present about 7 years ago by a friend who runs a butchers' supply service.  They hold their edges very well and I am only now considering gettimg my oil-stones out.  However, I always use my steel every time I pick one of these knives up.  I simply cannot stand a knife that is not razor sharp, and I am quite happy to stop half way thorugh a job, give the knife a wipe and a quick touch up on the steel.  I am a firm believer that a steel cannot sharpen a blunt knife but it can keep a sharp one sharp.  This is certainly proving the case.

I often have a browse around the local knife shop and drool over all their lovely knives, but at the end of the day I am very happy with my Victorinox, so I don't see a need to change.

Sibling Bluenose

[Griffin NoName]

Does he have the G series or the GF?

Total panic. I just bought what I was told to - or did I? Aaaaaaaaaaaaarrgggghhh! 

EDIT S'ok. "G" series. If he'd asked for a GF he'd have inherited the means to buy it rather quicker !!!

[Sibling Chatty]

Ooooh, I love the Victorinox edges...

My favorite design knife is a Vic that's now 32 years old, and much narrower than it was, but that thing'll hold a good sharpening forever.

They're just a really good knife, any type, and always nicely balanced. I had a Vic fish-knife that was superb, and an old, old friend liked it so much, I gave it to him when he opened his own restaurant. Paul Prudhomme of K-Paul's in New Orleans...he was often on the same radio station as a guest on the show before ours, and we got to know him then. I was 'helping out' at the WWL booth at the Jazz Festival the day he introduced Blackened Redfish. His fish knife vanished, and I got The Late Mr. DD to go get mine so we could keep going and NOT use my design knife to cut the fish, and he liked it--so I gave it to him when K-Paul's opened. He was still using it as of last year.
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No Name,

I can see why you don't like the handles of his knives. They're just...too 'upswept' to be comfortable.

If it makes him happy and he does NOT throw it about, good.

[Griffin NoName]

The handles are too narrow for my liking too.

He may throw it about. He taught himself to juggle with knives when a kid, unicycling too at the same time. And fire. But it was the knives that scared me... even though he showed me how they were weighted. He was an accident prone child, spent half my life at casualty with him; the juggling episode was heart in mouth for me every time he went out to practice. I am so glad he is grown up ! Well sort of a technically grown up.