Lesson 8: Chef Knives: Everything You Wanted to Know

Of all the equipaje in your damn kitchen, you really should make your most thoughtful investment in your chef knife. It took me a couple of months to figure out the importance, care, use and maintenance of this very important tool.

At first, I just wanted to know what knife was the best. I bent the ear of knowledgeable sales associates in Kitchen Kapers and in Williams Sonoma. Both experiences were very good and they both offered to let me "test drive" the knives. Well, in order to test drive, you need to know how to drive. So, in order to keep myself from looking like a damn idiot, I went home and watched a few youtube videos (luckily there are a great number of excellent instructional videos out there, so go explore!) on how to hold and use a chef knife. After watching more than one (it's ALWAYS good to see different perspectives on the same subject), I test drove with my own cheap chef knife that I had been using for years. What an experience! It's amazing how much more control and efficiency you have with your knife when you use it properly. You have to try it. Here's a great youtube video on How to Hold Your Chef Knife

However, when I held it properly and chopped a few onions with it, it didn't take long for me to notice that

Emotional Cherries in a Cobbler

It's the middle of the summer. And friggin Hades has laid down his blanket of oppressive heat on our heads. If you look out my window tomorrow morning, you'll see my burnt lawn and those invisible flames that distort the view of my neighbor's house. Also, cherries are in season. Heck, don't you think it's time we fire up the oven in the kitchen of my damnation? It's not quite hot enough, let's sear our faces in the inferno of hell's fury!

And in addition to this blazing heat wave we've been having, well, let's just say, life has thrown us a few damn pits, hasn't it? Screw the "when life gives you lemons, make lemonade" cheery bullcrap saying. It's up to you if you want to put on a sunny smile while getting kicked in the hooch by this stinkin economy or whatever else ails ya. That's not how I roll. I don't have a damn job yet and there shall be no sunny damn lemonade in this hellish kitchen. So here's my saying:

Lesson 7: What the Flatulence?

It is a socially accepted fact that boys have problems with gas and girls don't. Really, girls don't. Ever. I'm a girl. I don't become flatulent. Accept it as truth, or else I will have to kill you.

It is also true that farting has become a sport for many boys, especially the teenage variety and quite more so, the old man variety. In fact, I think all boys have an arsenal of tools ranging from the humble match to the brazen gas torch with which to create the ultimate in human methane fires. I know, you know, we all know... as, at one point, at some sort of summer camp along the way, we witnessed the laughter and explosions near the woods with certain nervousness of the start of a forest fire. Oh, the boys. How they love to fart anywhere and everywhere. Woe to the girl who must enter the car of the boy who has trapped the aroma of his consumed and released amusements. Even if the girl is the Mommy and the boy is a giggling little 4 year old. I call this experience "Pandora's Vehicle." I knew I'd have fun with the post, what with my inherited juvenile sense of humor. I'm sure, if I didn't have to get to the food preparation part that is relevant to a cooking blog, I could regale you with many a story of boys I have known and other boys my girlfriends know... and even stories that have become legends in the annals of the flatulence tales among my crowd of friends. I'm sure you, being fan of my page, and reading as far as you have, you probably have a few tales of your own to share. (I'd love to hear them in the comments section if you're brave). So, we are all familiar with the issue.

While some boys are proud of their musical toots, I know there are many gentleman out there who would rather avoid the beans and save themselves undue humiliation in front of the ladies that, as you remember, never ever have flatulence problems.

It's a shame really, to have so many people avoid the beans, especially