Knife Skills: In the kitchen Review

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(More customer reviews)This is a good basic book on how to handle kitchen knives and other culinary blades. It covers a lot of ground competently. A little sharpening, a little honing, some carving, plenty of kitchen prep work and even some nice technique. Even the experienced kitchen worker will find a few plums, so to speak. For example, I have cut a thousand string beans, and never look forward to taking the ends off two pounds of them. Use kitchen scissors!Or for you adventure seekers, spatchcocking birds such as poussins and game birds. Something for everybody.
- learn the tools
- learn to keep knives in proper working trim (much more fun to use)
- lots of vegetable preparation
- plenty of fish and shellfish
- most common meats including some organs
- fun with fruit
- a bit of bread and dessert
I was going to take off a star for covering so much ground in only about two hundred pages, but it is actually a good thing to have so much in one little book, especially for newbies. I have a dozen books covering this ground in detail; but this points you in the right direction for specializing later. For example, "The Professional Chef's Knife Kit" is on of that dozen special books, but it is referenced here under "further reading" (sic).
I do object to using the star roster on the cover with NO notable or signature contributions by any of them. I assert this claim because they have each copyrighted bits. Hall copyrighted the hardware section, which comprise the first fifty pages, but without expertise, just photos. Charlie trotter has a couple of fine books which I love and rate more highly, but here is nothing of his own true stamp. It seems things like photos of hands are a big deal, but these are barely instructive and not of the technical utility and brilliance of "La Methode" of Pepin. It all smacks of cashing in rather than doing the hard work of the real workhorse, Dorling Kindersley.
The other reasons it does not loose a second star: the publisher, Dorling Kindersley, has chosen high quality paper and binding. It patiently lays flat before your otherwise engaged hands; and finally, it accomplishes an important goal; this book shows you to do better work faster and more effectively, enabling you to be more ambitious in your cooking.

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Written by three Michelin-starred chefs: Charlie Trotter, Marcus Wareing, and Shaun Hill, this book covers every cutting technique-chopping, slicing, dicing, carving, filleting-for every relevant ingredient: meat, fish, shellfish, vegetables, herbs, and fruit. As more and more men are taking up cooking as a hobby-and they are particularly intent on perfecting their knife skills-and knife skills classes become more and more popular at cooking schools, this is the perfect time for a book geared for the layman (and laywoman) cook at home.

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Mastering Knife Skills: The Essential Guide to the Most Important Tools in Your Kitchen (with DVD) Review

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(More customer reviews)"Mastering Knife Skills" by chef Norman Weinstein is a marvel of a book - visually attractive, overflowing with facts both historical and culinary, the ultimate guide to the choosing of knives, their care and upkeep, and their optimal use.
This book fills a real gap in the field of cook-bookery. I, a serious amateur cook, have been cooking for over forty years now, and yet, in forty years of watching television cooking shows and reading cookbooks (of which I own some thirty), I have never before seen any teacher or TV chef relate - really relate in any serious and systematic, way - to this most important of all our cooking tools, at least not until the present illuminating book.
One could be forgiven for expecting such a book to offer mere dry factual knowledge on the subject, but in fact it is excitingly written and lavishly illustrated, and Weinstein's style has a flow and a sweep that pull the reader along from page to page, like a good detective novel, from slicing through dicing, to mincing to filleting to fabricating - yes, fabricating - a chicken. The accompanying DVD, furthermore, is graphic and extremely well presented.
I have seen Norman Weinstein in the classroom. He is an inspiring teacher, who wears his prodigious erudition lightly, and enlivens his classes with a quick and warm sense of humor. That same encyclopedic knowledge, sympathy and warmth come across in his book as well.
And one last note: following Weinstein's instructions I sat down for an hour with a sharpening stone and sharpened all my knives to an edge the like of which I have not ever gotten from the "professionals".
While this may not be the only cookbook you will ever want, it certainly is the only knife book you will ever need.
Harvey B.


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As the number of gourmet home kitchens burgeons, so does the number of home cooks who want to become proficient users of the professional-caliber equipment they own. And of all kitchen skills, perhaps the most critical are those involving the proper use of knives.Norman Weinstein has been teaching his knife skills workshop at New York City's Institute of Culinary Education for more than a decade-and his classes always sell out. That's because Weinstein focuses so squarely on the needs of the nonprofessional cook, providing basic instruction in knife techniques that maximize efficiency while placing the least possible stress on the user's arm. Now, Mastering Knife Skills brings Weinstein's well-honed knowledge to home cooks everywhere.Whether you want to dice an onion with the speed and dexterity of a TV chef, carve a roast like an expert, bone a chicken quickly and neatly, or just learn how to hold a knife in the right way, Mastering Knife Skills will be your go-to manual. Each cutting, slicing, and chopping method is thoroughly explained-and illustrated with clear, step-by-step photographs. Extras include information on knife construction, knife makers and types, knife maintenance and safety, and cutting boards, as well as a 30-minute instructional DVD featuring Weinstein's most important techniques.

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An Edge in the Kitchen: The Ultimate Guide to Kitchen Knives -- How to Buy Them, Keep Them Razor Sharp, and Use Them Like a Pro Review

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(More customer reviews)Chad Ward - An Edge in the Kitchen
I own two books on kitchen knives and knife skills, this one and Weinstein's Mastering Knife Skills. Chad Ward's book is the best of the two by its breadth and wealth of information and is objectively a very good book.
Physically, the book is a medium sized hard cover, well edited. There is a number of good B&W pictures through the book to illustrate specific points, and there's a central section of 48 pages of glossy color pictures depicting specific knife techniques (battonets vs. julienne, onion, tomatoes, cutting a chicken, butterflying a piece of meat, skinning salmon, carving a turkey, steeling a knife, several sharpening methods, etc).
The book is organized as follows:
1 - Choosing the right kitchen knife:
This section is about 90 pages, so it's a sizeable part of the book. The author goes through the various knife types, costs, etc. Generally, Chad advocates staying away from knife block & sets, and explains that a home cook can do most everything with 3 knives: 8" to 10" chef, paring, and a serrated (or scalloped) bread knife. So his recommendation is to get the best of those. What is really helpful is that the author gives specific recommendations for all budgets - below $100, $200, or "the sky's the limit". Too many books just say "get what feels best". Chad goes beyond this to give a range of specific endorsements. This part also includes 10+ pages on cutting boards and how to take care of them.
2 - Kitchen knife skills:
This section is about 30 pages but also has most of the color pictures in the center section. This is where the key knife skill concepts are explained, how to hold the blade and the item to be cut, etc. This is similar to other knife skill books, but with one major improvements which is a few recipes to practice the skills. Those recipes are really welcome, and because they are basic recipes that can be used as base for a number of varied dishes, they are great recipes to include in this book.
3 - Knife sharpening:
This section is about 70 pages and covers the theory & science of knife sharpening as well as specific reviews and advices for several methods. Chad reviews the sharpening of Western as well as Japanese style knives, and several sharpeing systems (e.g., Spyderco, EdgePro, etc).
At the end of the book are several pages of resources to buy knives, boards, sharpeners, etc.
In short, I think this is a complete book that covers the key concepts of knife skills, but also addresses knife selection and care. If you buy only one kitchen knives & skill book, I would recommend it.

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Why are most of us so woefully uninformed about our kitchen knives? We are intimidated by our knives when they are sharp, annoyed by them when they are dull, and quietly ashamed that we don't know how to use them with any competence. For a species that has been using knives for nearly as long as we have been walking upright, that's a serious problem. An Edge in the Kitchen is the solution, an intelligent and delightful debunking of the mysteries of kitchen knives once and for all. If you can stack blocks, you can cut restaurant-quality diced vegetables. If you can fold a paper airplane, you can sharpen your knives better than many professionals.

Veteran cook Chad Ward provides an in-depth guide to the most important tool in the kitchen, including how to choose the best kitchen knives in your price range, practical tutorials on knife skills, a step-by-step section on sharpening, and more--all illustrated with beautiful photographs throughout. Along the way you will discover what a cow sword is, and why you might want one; why chefs are abandoning their heavy knives in droves; and why the Pinch and the Claw, strange as they may sound, are in fact the best way to make precision vegetable cuts with speed and style.

An Edge in the Kitchen is the one and only guide to the most important tool in the kitchen.

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