Len's News, Notes, and Stuff

Tempted by More Kitchen Steel That I Don’t Need

I am a knife junkie. I like the expe­ri­ence of cook­ing, and for me the best part is all the cut­ting! There are few plea­sures quite like tak­ing a finely-crafted knife and hav­ing your way with meat, fish, fruit and veg­eta­bles to get exactly what you want with min­i­mal effort.

I am, by naa­ture, prone to excess. If I like some­thing, I tend to overindulge in it until I’m sated and, in many cases, move on to some­thing else. I clearly have not reached my point of sat­is­fac­tion when it comes to kitchen knives.

On one of the forums that I fre­quent, mem­bers are design­ing a new gyuto along with a member-vendor and member-knifemaker. It’ll be a 240mm or 270mm gyuto in AEB-L steel, with a Tada­suna pro­file to it. Now, I don’t own any­thing in AEB-L steel and do not have a Tad. That’s okay — the steel sounds fan­tas­tic and, from what I gather, Tads have excel­lent blade pro­files. The unknown and the antic­i­pa­tion of get­ting another amaz­ing per­former in my kitchen and in my hands is part of the appeal!

Yes, the pro­jected $300 pric­etag for this one knife does not scare me. In fact, I’m at the point where that is an entirely rea­son­able amount to spend on a knife.

Unfor­tu­nately, even though I have this planned pur­chase com­ing up later this year when the new Forum Knife is ready, other knives still call out to me every once in a while. Just this morn­ing, for exam­ple, two dif­fer­ent gyu­tos called my name. One is the Hat­tori FH 240mm gyuto — the first “Forum Knife” designed in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the knife knuts at KnifeForums.com. The other is the Ichi­monji TKC 240mm gyuto.

Why do these other knives still entice me?

The Hat­tori FH is, by all accounts, the best VG-10 knife you can get. I’ve wanted this knife since around the time I started learn­ing about J-knives. I even have the oppor­tu­nity to get this knife second-hand for “only” $200. The prob­lem is that it’s “just” VG-10. I feel that I’m at the point where I want more per­for­mance than VG-10 stain­less steel will provide.

The TKC calls out to me because it is highly-regarded for its pro­file and its absolute agility. It is thin — almost as thin as a Takeda, from what I’ve read — and very light, with a blade geom­e­try that’s an absolute plea­sure to use. The per­son who is sell­ing his Hat­tori FH is doing so because he got a TKC — and a brand new TKC will only run me $200!!

Still, I have restrained myself and will refrain from pur­chas­ing either of these knives. Why?

The log­i­cal, ratio­nal rea­son is because I’m keep­ing my sights on the new Forum AEB-L gyuto. it promises to have steel in the same class as Aogami 2 or Aogami Super — which means far bet­ter than VG-10, even at its best from Hat­tori. It promises to have the pro­file of a Tadat­suna, which is at the same level as the TKC. So, with the new Forum Knife, I’ll have bet­ter steel than the Hat­tori FH, and a pro­file on-par with the TKC. So why shell out an addi­tional $200 for another gyuto before the Forum Knife is ready?

It doesn’t make sense to do so.

How­ever, attrac­tion and infat­u­a­tion is not a mat­ter of logic & rea­son. It is an emo­tional thing. I’d be lying if I said that it was purely logic alone that saved me from mak­ing another pur­chase today.

So, ulti­mately, what is it that has con­vinced me to forego these two other gyu­tos and wait patiently for the Forum Knife? Writ­ing this post. Seri­ously. It’s cathar­tic and ther­a­peu­tic to just say this out loud and talk myself through it.

An addic­tion to high-quality kitchen knives is both a plea­sure and a curse. It gives me great plea­sure when prepar­ing good food, yet it causes me to spend way too much time and men­tal energy think­ing about my next purchase.

Per­haps you can relate — if not with cook­ing knives, then surely with what­ever it is that you spend far too much time and money on!