Foody Birthday Swag

I got a couple of nice little items for the kitchen for my previously mentioned birthday. The first is a lovely Santoku from my gran; German carbon steel, ice hardened, glass finished and forged in the fires of hell. Oh, and the tang is fan-tang-stic (o-ho!). I’ve never really been able to slice and dice (in the kitchen, I don’t slice and dice at all outside of it) with a proper knife before. Silly pressed knives that go blunt at the drop of a hat were all too common in my past. I blame it on being poor and not having enough cash to drop on a knife. But no more! Seriously, this thing is beautiful. It’s even more fun to chop than it was before.

If you don’t have a nice knife, then you should really treat yourself. Or have a birthday. Throw a fake party and get some friends (that don’t really know you) round and get them to club together for some expensive knives. It’ll be inconvenient when they find out your actual birthday is months away and you used them for knives, but who cares; you can always cook them something to apologize.

I also got the phenomenal On Food and Cooking by Harold McGee. The thing is an information goldmine, plus the shiny new modern front cover means it looks nice on the shelf. And it’s a thick book. Thick books are well known to make you look four times as intelligent than a thin book. It doesn’t contain any recipes, but it has so much etymology, history and science in that I’ve been getting a quick read in at any opportunity. I also recommend it and advise a purchase if you are into the kind of stuff it is teaching.

So, all in all, this was definitely not a bad year. I could have got a food processor, but I traded the idea in for a Playstation 2. Childish, yes, but entertaining nonetheless.