Ever been in the middle of a recipe only to find your knife squashing tomatoes instead of slicing them? That's where Richard from Bear Claw Knife and Shear comes in, bringing his edge to Sweet Tea and Tacos! This week, we're all about honing your blades and cutting through the clutter of choosing the right knives for your culinary quests. Richard spins the tale of his journey from a small sharpening operation to a booming business, giving us the sharp truth on how investing in quality steel and craftsmanship can transform your cooking.
Our kitchen counters become the arena as we tackle the art of knife sharpening and maintenance. Discover the secrets to keeping your blades in peak condition, from the WorkSharp belt sharpener's quick touch-ups to the importance of steering clear of those dreaded glass cutting boards. We share why sometimes leaving the sharpening to the pros can save your knives (and fingers) from unnecessary wear and tear. And for the DIY chefs out there, we've got some pointers that will have your knives gliding through ingredients like butter.
But it's not just about the knives—your cutting board deserves love too! We chop into the world of cutting surfaces, weighing up the pros and cons of wood versus plastic and how to keep them in top shape. And let's not forget the essentials: from the humble paring knife to the mighty chef's knife, we cover which blades are must-haves in every kitchen toolkit. So, sharpen your ears and join us, Dave, Jen, and our cutlery curator Richard, for a culinary conversation that's sure to leave you on the cutting edge of kitchen prep!
Ever been in the middle of a recipe only to find your knife squashing tomatoes instead of slicing them? That's where Richard from Bear Claw Knife and Shear comes in, bringing his edge to Sweet Tea and Tacos! This week, we're all about honing your blades and cutting through the clutter of choosing the right knives for your culinary quests. Richard spins the tale of his journey from a small sharpening operation to a booming business, giving us the sharp truth on how investing in quality steel and craftsmanship can transform your cooking.
Our kitchen counters become the arena as we tackle the art of knife sharpening and maintenance. Discover the secrets to keeping your blades in peak condition, from the WorkSharp belt sharpener's quick touch-ups to the importance of steering clear of those dreaded glass cutting boards. We share why sometimes leaving the sharpening to the pros can save your knives (and fingers) from unnecessary wear and tear. And for the DIY chefs out there, we've got some pointers that will have your knives gliding through ingredients like butter.
But it's not just about the knives—your cutting board deserves love too! We chop into the world of cutting surfaces, weighing up the pros and cons of wood versus plastic and how to keep them in top shape. And let's not forget the essentials: from the humble paring knife to the mighty chef's knife, we cover which blades are must-haves in every kitchen toolkit. So, sharpen your ears and join us, Dave, Jen, and our cutlery curator Richard, for a culinary conversation that's sure to leave you on the cutting edge of kitchen prep!
Hey, welcome to Sweet Tea and Tacos. I'm Dave.
Speaker 2:And I'm Jen.
Speaker 1:And Jen sounds different this week because she's a remote guest this week. We're kind of traveling separately this week because she's a remote guest this week. We're kind of traveling separately this week and we have Richard from Bear Claw Knife and Shear. Welcome, richard, thank you. Thank you for having me. We're really happy and glad you could join us and what are we talking about today, jennifer?
Speaker 2:Well, knives, of course. Knives, of course right.
Speaker 1:So I had the chance to a couple we all we came across bear claw knife and shear a few months ago and our travels and got to meet richard and uh, they have a sharpening class because we've talked about in a previous knife podcast about taking care of your knives and sharpening your knives and I wanted to know more. I took your class, really enjoyed it, had a great time. You have a ton of information, very knowledgeable. So, Richard, tell us a little bit how you got started.
Speaker 3:Well, first I'd like to say hello to all our listeners. At the same time, we're doing a blog with you. We're also videotaping this for our YouTube channel and our YouTube followers, so I'm very excited to be doing this with you. Yeah, we got started almost 25 years ago.
Speaker 3:I was in Big Spring, texas little town, and I was passing by what was once the store. It had been closed down for a few years. I remember my father-in-law talking about it and we kind of laughed. You know, how are you going to make any money running a sharpening shop? Back then it was just sharpening and I was passing it and thought, oh, I'll go back and take a look because the whole property is for sale. So I took a look. We were able to negotiate a deal with the then owner and we ended up buying the place and the shop.
Speaker 3:The original gentleman, the founder, chuck Giles, had died a few years before, so there was a lot of work to do to get it up and running. But his wife, trilby, was there and we were able to get it going again, just as something to do between other businesses, because I was still doing other things on the road. And, yeah, we ended up running it, it got bigger and I just did sharpening back then. That's all we did. We didn't really sell anything, retail, retail.
Speaker 3:I grew up in retail and jewelry and I was wasn't really looking to do anything more retail. But then a friend of mine came in, brad ingram, and he says, man, you got to start carrying knives. And I said you know, brad, I really don't want to do that. And he said, no, no, you got to do it, you got to do it. So I got about a dozen uh knives in and a day they were gone. So I put that money into more knives, and then more knives, and then more knives, and now we carry uh, you know, during the holiday season, where we've got a million dollars worth of inventory wow, oh man, yeah, that's fantastic.
Speaker 1:So, richard, um, like I mentioned before, we had a, we did a podcast, previous podcast, just a basic kind of talking about knives and shapes. If you, if you had nothing, sure so, uh, if you were, you know, maybe you had a basic knife but you're ready to kind of get a little bit higher end, or what do I need to look for in a good knife or knives for the kitchen?
Speaker 3:well, the probably the knife that's most used by any chef or any serious even not so serious home cook or chef is going to be the 8-inch chef's knife. Everybody needs an 8-inch chef's knife, so that's the first shape or size of a knife that you need. It's an 8-inch chef's knife.
Speaker 2:That happens to be my favorite actually.
Speaker 3:Well, you know, once you know how to use a chef's knife and you learn the pinch grip and you get used to it and you do a little practice with it, you wonder why you were cutting up everything with a paring knife. You know it makes no sense anymore. So a chef's knife is really that's 80%, 90% of what you're going to use. After that you can get into other specialty knives meant for other things. But chef's knife is really the workhorse of the kitchen and probably you know I wouldn't necessarily buy an inexpensive chef's knife to start with, because if you buy a lousy knife you are not going to be happy with it. It's not going to hold an edge. The edge that's on it once it's sharpened. You are not going to be happy with it. It's not going to hold an edge. The edge that's on it once it's sharpened is not going to be very good and it's going to be a real bother.
Speaker 3:I would wait. You hold off. Save some money. Get into a better knife Not necessarily super expensive, but certainly much better. And the best way to do that is to go to a specialty shop Specialty shops. There's usually people there who actually know what they're talking about, and especially if it's a cutlery store, now there's not a ton of us left. But if it's a true cutlery store, then you're going to find a staff that really knows what they're doing and you can get something that has a good quality steel, because everything's about steel, really. I mean, that's first and foremost what you want to look at with a knife, jennifer.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would totally agree, and I don't know if David shared this with you. But we actually met when we were working at kind of a higher-end culinary store. I mean it's more of a corporate type, but you know there's a place for that.
Speaker 2:But, I applaud the local, leo, as well. But you know it was so important when I would sell those knives, you know, for someone to just be able to hold it and feel it. Like you say, check the balance and the weight and all of that. I mean you've got to put it in your hand, you know, to know if you're going to be happy with that.
Speaker 3:So I, I totally agree sure well with what you're saying well, it's a whole package really. But the first question, once you find a knife that you like and it looks good, you think you might want to take it home, is to find out what steel is in it. And then, if you go online, you look up a knife chart there's a number of knife charts in there that you'll be able to find that steel and see where that steel, how it compares to all the other steels, and there's really four properties we look at with steel there's toughness, corrosion resistance, edge retention and sharpenability. So that's the way that we measure one steel against another looking at toughness, corrosion resistance, edge retention and sharpenability. So that's how we compare steels. So for some people, they want to absolutely make sure that they don't have a knife that will rust at all ever. For other people for most people really it's edge retention how well is it going to hold an edge? Other people don't care about the rust. Yes, the same sharp edge retention how long does it stay sharp after you sharpen it? Other people, they want it to be very, very easy to sharpen, so they want a softer steel. So it really depends on what the person who's going to use a knife wants, what their emphasis is on as to which steel they're going to choose.
Speaker 3:But a true specialty cutlery store, they know all the steels. Yeah, there's a lot of them out there. There's a ton of steels and we have a pretty good idea of what the most common ones are, for sure, and if there's a steel there that we're not fully familiar with, we have the resources to find out what it is and how it's going to perform for that particular use. But it's all about steel. If it's got a lousy steel, you know there's one brand and I won't mention the brand on here, though I do on my channel quite a bit but there's one brand that's one of the biggest knife-making companies in the US, if not the biggest, and they're very, very expensive and they're sold by young people, typically in college, and sold to their families and friends and so forth, and it's a terrible steal. It's a terrible steal and that's a lot of money and it's a terrible steel. It's a terrible steel and that's a lot of money and they're a terrible steel.
Speaker 3:So, um, you know plastic handle and bad steel, but still 150, 200 knife, wow. So, uh, it's kind of sad that they they tell people this is the best cutlery steel in the world and they freely admit that. They freely tell you this is the best cutlery steel in the world and it's not right, it's just not so. Uh, yeah, you've got to be kind of careful. But if you go to a true cutlery store, they're not going to have that brand there, right, and they're going to. They're going to show you some knives, uh, at different price points, that will have a steel that you're probably going to be pretty happy with Gotcha.
Speaker 1:And so what about if I decide to invest in a higher-end knife or set of knives? After maybe I've started out with my basic knife. How do I take care of that? What do I need to do?
Speaker 3:Great question. The first and foremost, the thing you need to do is make sure you steel the knife each time you use it. Now, butcher steel is nothing more than a steel rod. Most of them that you're going to use at home will have little ridges in it. Sometimes the butchers will use what we call a burnisher. It'll be smooth, but most of the time it'll have little ridges in it and you can tell the difference in quality just by feeling it it'll. It'll feel kind of silky if it's a really good quality butcher steel and you run the knife along the butcher steel, going from the heel to the tip, away from the edge. You can go towards the edge as well, but typically you want to go away from the edge in order to bring up that edge, because as you're using a knife, the edge will fold and you want to keep it straight and extend that time between sharpenings, because every time you sharpen a knife you're removing steel. So so we don't want to do that more than we absolutely have to, because eventually you can't put the steel back. So, uh, you use a butcher steel each time.
Speaker 3:Now the butcher steel doesn't work for some of the very high-end powdered steels that are out now they just laugh at a butcher steel. So for those you need a fine abrasive ceramic or another type of abrasive in order to do that and they make abrasive rods that work for those. But for most of your typical Wusthoffs and Hinkles which is willing, and for most of the forged knives they're going to work well on that and certainly all the carbon knives, which is really what the butcher steel was designed for originally was carbon knives, not the stainlesses. But most of the forged stainlesses are soft enough that you can steel those well and it'll bring that edge up each time. Now when the butcher steel doesn't work, it's time to go to abrasive. Remove a little bit of steel and and bring that edge back again okay, so how?
Speaker 1:how does that? How do I know that it's not working?
Speaker 3:the butcher steel when I'm?
Speaker 1:you know I'm using my knife and I know I need to get it sharpened. What does that feel like?
Speaker 3:knife is as a knife does. So if you go to cut something and it slips off, that's dangerous and that's a dull knife. Um, I could always tell when I'm cutting mushrooms, especially if the mushrooms are a day or two old. They got kind of slimy stuff going on and uh, and you go up there with your little claw, you know, and you put the knife up to the knuckles and you go to cut, it slides off the edge. And you go to cut and it slides off the edge. And you go to cut and it slides off the edge.
Speaker 3:If it's not with almost no effort, if it's not just biting and just going right through without me having to do hardly anything, that knife needs to be worked on. It needs to be steeled first of all. And if I go back and I steel it again and it's still doing that slip, then I need to go to an abrasive, and for that we've got a. Here at Bearclaw we have a ceramic rod that's like $10. And it's a big, honking ceramic rod. It's about $10. And you could do the same thing you do with a butcher steel but on the ceramic rod, and it will generally bring that edge back if it's just a little bit off, but now it's a smooth ceramic, so if it's really dull, like if you've been cutting on a granite, countertop right or glass or glass, oh good lord yeah, cutting board.
Speaker 3:oh, I hate them. But if you're cutting on that stuff, it's very abrasive to the edge. Your edge is going to be really dull and you'll be there all day long trying to sharpen out a very smooth ceramic. So at that point, when that doesn't work, then you need to go to a more aggressive abrasive Either a stone or a system or whatever you have that you're going to sharpen with.
Speaker 1:You know, one of the things we talked about in our last podcast was about having your knives sharpened professionally. It having your knives sharpened professionally. It's not that expensive.
Speaker 3:It's such a great way to have good, sharp knives in the kitchen kind of talk to me about that a little bit well, you know, a professional sharpener typically sharpens on belts, and most of us use a ceramic belt, which actually sharpens. Very cool, it's ceramic, so it's it does a great job. Uh, ceramic is almost as hard as diamond, so it'll sharpen up all the harder steels as well. So we'll do the first coarse grit with a ceramic belt, and then we go to a silicon carbide for your um, just to smooth out that serration a little bit, and then we finish most of us finish on leather, or we finish for us, we finish on a hard felt wheel with some chromium oxide, which is a compound which, um, you know, gets rid of that burr that forms on the edge when you're sharpening um. So it's, it's, it's pretty quick now for us.
Speaker 3:We only charge four dollars and 25 cents to sharpen a knife, and that's any size, and, and if, if, the tip is broken off, we won't charge you anything more just to redress that and turn it back into a real looking, normal knife. But we're very fast. I mean, we sharpen, obviously, a lot of blades, and people send us blades from all over the country. The thing is, though, is we've got 20, 30 seconds to sharpen a knife when you're at home. You're not going to buy a $3,000 belt. You know, birkin, so you're going to be sharpening on a stone, it's going to take you a little bit longer, but essentially you're doing the same thing. Now WorkSharp is a company that has a belt sharpener that's out and it's one of the few things that we recommend that you can pull through and it's a belt and it uses a slack belt, just like what we do, which puts a slight convex edge on the edge and so the WorkSharp system.
Speaker 3:we like that. Just keep in mind that bad things can happen very quickly when you've got a belt. That's moving pretty fast, so start with one of your, not so, you know, important knives.
Speaker 1:How often you know um. If I cook on a really regular basis, how often do I need it? In my mind is it once a year, twice a year to have a knife professionally sharpened?
Speaker 3:uh, that's a great question. It's a question a lot of people ask me. You know, um, if it's a little flippant. But if somebody says how often should I sharpen my knife, I said, well, if you never use it, you never have to sharpen it. So somewhere between that and every day is going to be your answer. Um, with with a knife.
Speaker 3:If you're a professional chef, you're butchering all day or you're butcher stealing. You're using that butcher steal all day long and you're probably sharpening at least once a day, if not two or three times a day. If you're a sushi chef See, I said that without all my S's getting you know. But if you're filleting fish all day long, cutting up fish, that has to be ridiculously sharp. So they tend to use a carbon steel blade and it's a geometry that's very, very thin, ridiculously sharp, but they tend to go dull pretty quickly. So they sharpen on Japanese waterstones. Typically they use a much lower angle, but their knives are literal razors and uh, and they're cutting like crazy. But they're probably going to sharpen at least first thing in the morning and then probably later in that afternoon as well, and uh, and in order just to keep it to where it just glides through the meat effortlessly. So it really depends on the knife, it depends on the steel, it depends on what you're cutting, what you're cutting on you you're cutting on. You mentioned glass cutting boards.
Speaker 1:Yeah, let's talk about cutting boards real quick. Sure, yeah. So you know, Jennifer and I we talked a little bit about this previously and you know, you've seen wood. Wood was the thing for long, long hundreds of years, and then we got into other materials, plastics and glass, which and, uh you know different, uh the solid surface material material, yeah, so, um, we use mainly plastic, the kind of the white restauranty grades you can throw in the dishwasher.
Speaker 1:And then we had, you know, wood at one point. So what, what, what do you recommend? And as far as cutting boards and care and that type of thing, you know I at one point, so what, what, what do you recommend? And as far as cutting boards and care, and that type of thing.
Speaker 3:You know, I like wood best. Okay, I like the way it looks, uh, I like the way it feels under the knife. Um, the plastic cutting boards, the typical white plastic cutting boards, and now they come in all colors so you can separate your boards. You can have a green board for vegetables, you can have a red board for red meats and so on and so forth, and they're fine. They tend to get a lot of cuts in the surface and you can have them resurface, but it's fairly expensive, but you get a lot of cuts in the surface. It's nice that you can throw them in the dishwasher, but really, truly, they've done a number of studies now and you could pull these up online.
Speaker 3:This is not me talking, this is different colleges who've done the studies. They've introduced bacteria to the surface of these boards wood boards and plastic boards. In every instance they were surprised by the fact that on the plastic boards the bacteria became huge. I mean, it grew overnight, but on the wood boards there was never bacteria by the next morning. So they think that there's an enzyme in the wood that the wood pulls in the bacteria and the enzymes kill the bacteria. So they've been using wood boards now for thousands of years, since people were people, and now we're finding out that they're actually safer than the plastic boards are.
Speaker 1:That's amazing, isn't it? It is.
Speaker 3:Old is new again.
Speaker 1:Yes, that's right. So how do you take care of a wooden cutting board? Because they can be expensive, they can be. How do you take care of a wooden cutting board? Because they can be expensive they can be. How do you take care of them?
Speaker 3:Well, it's pretty easy. There's really two types of wood cutting boards. There's ingrain, which is all the little blocks that are ingrained, so the tree grows straight up and down. You cut a section off and that's an ingrain board. Then we glue up all the squares. It usually looks like a bunch of little squares glued together, and the good thing about those is that you're actually cutting with the grain, so they're fairly self-healing. They look better, longer and they feel better under the knife. But then you also have the boards that are flat sawn or cross cut, however you want to call it, where the grain goes across the board and that looks like longer pieces of wood that are glued together, and those are great for doing carving, for instance.
Speaker 3:Now you can use those for doing knife work and doing prep work with your vegetables. You can do that and that's fine. I mean, they're cutting boards, so it works. But it's going to get looking cut up sooner because you're cutting across grains instead of with the grain. In either case, once the board starts drying out, you want to put some mineral oil on it, and there's there's lots of different board oil and treatments out there. Some of them contain beeswax, they contain other materials, but most of them are mineral based, mineral oil-based, and you can use food-grade oil, but some of these food-grade oils can go rancid over time and make that board smell Right, like the seed oils, and things Exactly.
Speaker 2:They're very easily, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they can go bad.
Speaker 2:Here's a question about maybe like about sanitizing Now. I read like an autobiography years ago of Julia Child and how she, you know, studied at the Cordon Bleu, and they were of course using the cutting boards and butcher blocks and that kind of thing. And I think she said that to sanitize them after they had done you know, meat that they would use, maybe like lemon juice and salt or something, is that? Is that a good thing to use?
Speaker 3:not, not really for a wood board. Here's the thing with wood um, once you, you know, once you're done cutting on wood, um, most of what you do on a board is not meats, and if you do meats you probably want to use a separate board anyways instead of using your prep board. But once you're done using the board, you can just take a. I have a sink full of dishwater when I'm cooking anyways and I'm cleaning as I go, but you just grab your towel right and get it wet and go over to your board, or take the board over to the sink and just wipe all the stuff off of there. The wood will take care of the rest. Okay, the wood takes care of the rest. Remember bacteria typically the wood's going to kill the bacteria and so you know you don't have to worry about it as much with a wood board. Now with a plastic board, you definitely have to worry about it. You want to get every bit of that stuff off the board and you want to get rid of the bacteria for sure. So being able to sanitize that and the dishwashers is probably a good thing. Now, if you put a wood cutting board in the dishwasher, it's going to come out pieces.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I had a gentleman. No, I had a gentleman come in. Uh well, it was just a couple months ago and he, he literally had a box with little pieces. It was a nice ingrained cutting board and it had all little pieces of wood in there and it'll completely come apart. And uh, and we said, you know, you know, you can't throw these in the dishwasher. And he goes, I didn't throw in the dishwasher, I, I didn't do it, just came apart by itself. Yeah, I didn't have anything to do with it well, somebody must have?
Speaker 3:yeah, yeah, they definitely did. Yeah, that's the thing with wood. But you know, you wipe that down, the wood takes care of the rest and it has for for centuries. If, if you go I'm from new england originally, I'm from connecticut and all the delis up there whether the italian delis or jewish delis they all have this big butcher block back there and usually it's been used for 100 plus years, 200 years or even more, and it'll be all cupped out in the middle, you know. And they're still using that thing to cut up meats and sandwiches and everything all day long, every day, and it's just as good as the day they bought it 200 years ago when the store first opened. So, yeah, wood is a good thing. It's beautiful. I just love wood. It's just natural and the way things are right now people are trying to get back to the basics and wood is that For sure.
Speaker 1:Cool, and so what about? Let's go, I guess, circle back to knives again. And so what about? Let's go, I guess. Circle back to knives again. What do you tell people to look for in a knife? We talked about steels a little bit, but more specific, what kind of steel Do you have? Brands that you like? Did you have? You know? I don't know. Go ahead.
Speaker 3:Well, you know, we can start with the German cutleries, the German companies, the two German companies, wusthof, zwilling and all these big knife companies. They all have several lines. But if you look for something that is a knife that a chef would use, you're going to get a German cutlery steel. I won't go into all the part numbers and everything on them, but they're fairly soft. They're at a rock well, typically 56, 58. And at that rock well it's easy to keep those and maintain those. So they're easy to take care of, keep them sharp.
Speaker 3:Now, out of China. We have some very nice knives coming out of China. You got to be careful with China. Well, with everybody now you have to be careful. But there's a couple of good brands. We carry Kangshan and they're making some phenomenal knives right now and in a wide range of steels. They've got a 14C28N which is a Sandvik steel, which is a very pure steel. It's a nice stainless without being expensive and it's a nice steel. But you can go all the way up to their Tom Keller line, which is a high-end powdered steel from Crucible, which is a US steelmaker. Now on our YouTube channel we're actually going to be visiting with Crucible in Niagara and showing folks how these steels are made, how they go from raw materials to a billet that goes to their knife maker, and so, yeah, it's going to be a fun one.
Speaker 3:We're going to be exploring powdered steels and the newer technology, but those steels like what's in the Thomas Keller line is just, they're amazing, but they're a very hard steel. They're up at a Rockwell 63 or more and they're a little more difficult. You have to sharpen them on diamond or ceramic because because the other you know, sharpening media is not hard enough and a little tougher to take care of. Well, not hard, right, just a little tougher, um, so it varies quite a bit. Uh, the and there's other, there's lots of other companies out there, um, but you'd be surprised how many companies that everybody knows the name of has a terrible knife and people get it and they just don't understand why it's not performing like it should, why it doesn't hold an edge, why it doesn't cut like the people using it. The chefs on TV are using it. Because they're different. You know, the, the one they make for the chef has a high-end, beautiful steel, and the one you get at the big box store not necessarily yeah, so uh, how do you really know the difference?
Speaker 1:what am I? What do I need to do if I, if I, run into that situation?
Speaker 3:well, you know, if you find a, a brand that you like, that you trust, the first thing you want to do once you hold it you like what it looks like. You found the blocks that you want ask them what kind of steel it is. And if they tell you stainless steel, just look at them with that woolly eyeball and say, yeah, how about we get a little more specific than that? There's companies out there that will say it's surgical stainless. Well, that means nothing. What steel is it? If they won't tell you, don't buy the knives.
Speaker 1:Do not buy the knives. Can they tell you the hardness of it?
Speaker 3:Well, they should be able to tell you the part number of it and what company makes it. Once you have that information, you can get to your steel chart online. Remember, all the information in the world is now contained in our pocket, exactly Right, so they can't pull one over on us anymore. It's important for you to be educated. You don't have to spend a whole ton of money on a knife, but if you want to get a decent knife, you're going to spend some money. You know you're at at least $100 for a chef's knife at least, so you want to know what it is you're getting. And there's a lot of $200, $300 chef's knives out there $500 chef's knife that have lousy steel. Some companies will just throw the price up there, thinking that the price will equal quality and people will just buy it because it's an expensive knife. And they're right. People will, but you won't.
Speaker 3:You folks out there listening. That's why you listen to this blog is because you get to learn the real way of doing things. Find out what the steel is and then go to your knife chart online, find out more about that particular steel and how it measures up against other steels, and it doesn't hurt before you go knife shopping to actually learn a little bit about steels. And then the second thing is you know there are some box stores that will have people working there that actually know what they're doing, but in most cases they just speak like they know what they're doing but they really don't. Specialty stores are still the best place to go. You may spend a little bit more, but what you get for service and knowledgeable people is just it's well worth it.
Speaker 1:So would you suggest somebody buy a set of knives, or buy knives at a time?
Speaker 3:That's a great question. That comes down to budget. You know, if you've got a budget, I lean towards and we do this a lot in our store bring a block from home, because you probably already have a block there at home that you like. Get rid of the knives or bring them to your knife store. They'll use them for sharpening practice when they train a new sharpener or whatever. But if you're buying knives, sometimes it's better just to get the particular knives that you want, because when you buy a set, for instance, a lot of people they never make bread, they never cut bread, they're not going to use a bread knife, but almost every set has a bread knife in it. Almost every set has a utility knife.
Speaker 3:Now, what is a utility knife? What does that really mean? We sell some here, we sell utility knives, but when I think about it I'm thinking utility knife. What am I using the knife? To open up packages, or you know that's really more for the scissors. So I have specific knives that I want to get. I want to get a boning knife so I could debone my chickens and other meats. You know when I need to use that. As for meats, I'm going to have a paring knife in there for doing more detail work. I'm going to have a six-inch chef's or eight-inch chef's knife. I'm going to have a six or seven-inch santoku, which I like to call my fajita knife because it cuts meats and vegetables equally well and it's got that straighter edge than a chef's knife Not meant for mincing or dicing, but definitely julien cuts. You know, if I'm making fajitas, I'm reaching for that, that santoku, and I might have one or two others in there. A fillet knife, if I eat a lot of fish and I like filleting my own, you know whole fish.
Speaker 1:So you get the knives just the knives that you want and you put them in your own block. If you don't have a block, the knife store is going to have some blocks for you, or they can get some for you and I think one of the underappreciated things and my wife taught me, Jennifer taught me this the kitchen shear.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:She loves them. Yeah, I never, ever used one until we got married. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Oh, I can't function without a good pair of chicken shears, you know if you. To me that's essential, oh yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean take apart shears so you can clean them well.
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 3:And they're not usually the best quality shears out there, but they'll cut through what you need it to. So if you're cutting vegetables, it's especially good for taking apart a chicken, you know why, get pieces of chicken you can get, especially if you have a family.
Speaker 3:Now, I'm a single guy, you know, so I can live off of one thigh, so you know it's fine. But if I've got a family, I'm not buying chicken thighs or chicken breasts. I'm getting a whole chicken and I'm I'm cutting that up or I'm deboning it one or the other um, but I'm not going to buy the different pieces and with a good kitchen shears, it takes good everything from opening up, you know, the package of of mozzarella cheese to taking a chicken apart in about three seconds.
Speaker 1:Right. I just would rather have something I know is only for food than the scissors. I'm not sure what we were using the scissors for, craft wise last, and I know, the kitchen shears are kitchen.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You just use them for the food and you're good.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. Shears are a great thing to have in the kitchen, awesome.
Speaker 1:Do you have anything else, Jennifer?
Speaker 2:Oh goodness, Wow, we've covered a lot of ground. Well, I guess and this may have been kind of answered before but do you have like a favorite knife? Would it be, you know, a cook's knife, or do you have anything that's just kind of like your go-to every time, or does it just depend on what you're cooking you?
Speaker 3:know it really depends on what I'm working on, but most of what I use a knife for is vegetable prep and that's going to be my 8-inch chefs. If I've got a big pile of parsley, I'm going to be going to a 10-inch chef or even bigger, because you know you're going from a big pile to a little pile.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you use the leverage, you rock it and it helps with this big you can really slice through a big.
Speaker 3:you know with a larger chef's knife, but typically I'm reaching for that 8-inch chef's knife or a 7-inch santoku, you know, and that's typically what I'll use, and most of the time 9 out of 10 times it's going to be that chef's knife. What I'll use, and most of the time nine out of ten times it's going to be that chef's knife. Now, the boning knife if I'm doing anything with meats or I'm trimming, it's going to be that boning knife, because the geometry of the boning knife is specifically for meats.
Speaker 1:Is that a more rigid one or a flexible one?
Speaker 3:I use a semi-flex but, they come in all three.
Speaker 3:They come in flexible, semi-flex and then the stiffer ones, and they're usually six inches or so is about the right size, and they're really made for dealing with meats, either trimming fat or like chicken I like to get that extra fat off the chicken thighs and a good boning knife with a good edge that you could actually just take and scrape that fat right off effortlessly. You know, it's funny. I was at my daughter's place up in Pennsylvania she lives up in the Poconos and I had gotten her a bunch of nice Wistoff knives and she had them in a box on top of the refrigerator because she was afraid to use them.
Speaker 2:Because they were so sharp.
Speaker 3:So she's actually making dinner and she has seven of my many grandchildren and she's making dinner and I noticed she's struggling trying to cut chicken, which, if you have a sharp knife, it's pretty easy. And she's struggling. I look at her. I'm what are you doing is pretty easy. And she's struggling. I look at her and what are you doing? And she says she says she's got this really cheapy, terrible knife that's got no edge. And I said what did you do with the knives that I sent you goes well, they're up there. So I grabbed him down, I grabbed the six inch boning knife and I cut through the chicken like it was butter and then I handed it to her and she could not believe the difference. Now that was really extreme, right. But I tell you what, if you've got a good quality knife and you keep it sharp, your life is going to be so much easier and it's going to be fun to cook again I think you know you mentioned that buying the chicken parts versus the whole chicken.
Speaker 1:I wonder how much of that is from people who had bad knives, who struggled, struggled. I can just buy a piece. This is so much easier.
Speaker 3:Well, you see, in every grocery store you see pre-prepped vegetables, you see onions already diced. You see everything already prepped and it's so much more expensive. You know, prepping that stuff is easy if you know how. And let me tell you, the University of YouTube.
Speaker 3:there are so many really fine chefs on there that will teach you how to use an 8-inch chef's knife. And once you know how, once you get that pinch grip down, once you get the little claw going on the left hand or right hand, depending on whether you're left-handed or right once you have that down, life as cooking is just fun. It's fun.
Speaker 1:Prepping is fun.
Speaker 3:Cutting stuff up is fun. Prepping is fun. Cutting stuff up is fun. I tell you, when I make soup, the actual vegetables that I'm cutting up, it's like an animation thing where they actually go up in the air in a big loop and then they fall into the pot. It's fast. I could cut up all the stuff I need for a vegetable stew in about a heartbeat. It's fun to do. I could cut up all the stuff I need for a vegetable stew in about a heartbeat, yeah.
Speaker 1:It's fun to do Well, thank you for joining us today, Richard my pleasure.
Speaker 3:Did you want to say something? Did you have something?
Speaker 2:to add. I was just going to say I think we've said it before you know, a good knife really makes you a better cook, and you know, same for good pots and pans. But you know, like you were saying, it can make such a difference.
Speaker 1:It turns it from a struggle to fun.
Speaker 3:It really does. It really does. Cooking should be fun. It should be, and it's so much healthier.
Speaker 3:If you're buying all fresh stuff, get away from the boxes. They're terrible for you. Get to fresh vegetables, fresh meats the good stuff for you. Get your fresh vegetables, fresh meats the good stuff. You're going to be a lot healthier for it, your family's going to be a lot healthier, kids are going to be easier to manage and you're going to have fun making dinner again. And, by the way, people, if they want to get some of the good stuff, we only carry things that are worth the money you pay for it. You don't have to spend a lot of money, but if you spend $20 on a knife at Bearclaw, you're getting $20 worth. If you're spending $300 on a knife at Bear Claw, you're getting $300 worth, and that's really all people want. So you can go to bcknifecom B, as in bear, c as in claw knife singular bcknifecom and we have just about everything we have in the store we've got on there. Or you can come see us in Midland Texas. We'll be happy to sit down with you and help you out, and you mentioned your YouTube channel.
Speaker 3:Yes, youtube it's Richard Steinberg Making Knives. We actually visit knife makers around the country soon it's around the world and see how they make knives whether it's individual makers or companies and we do both the culinary side and the sporting side as well culinary side and the sporting side as well. And then we also talk about you know everything that's knife related, from cutting boards to you know how to use the knife to how to sharpen it, how to use the butcher's steel. We talk about a lot of those issues and, yeah, so go see us on our vlog on YouTube Richard Steinberg Making.
Speaker 1:Knives and we'll have links in the description, and for Sweet Teen Tacos. I'm Dave.
Speaker 2:And I'm Jen.
Speaker 1:And don't forget to share and tell your friends about the podcast. And, hey, go check out our website and we have some new links on there about supporting us, and we've got some more episodes coming out shortly, so stay tuned. Thanks for having me. Thanks for having letting us do this, richard, my pleasure.