Dear
I've a cracking offer for you this week on a Henckels "5 Star" knife block. But before I tell you more about it and whilst on the subject of knives, I thought you might like to have a couple of tips about keeping your knives sharp?
A lot of people don't know this...
My first tip is on how to slow the process of your knives going blunt in the first place. Always cut on wood or soft nylon type chopping boards or of course my favourite Top Gourmet Boards. Wood (and Top Gourmet) in particular are safe, hygienic, look good and won't blunt your knives. The nylon (polypropylene) ones are ditto apart, subjectively, from looks! On the other hand if you cut on almost any other surface commonly available in your kitchen ( glass worktop savers come to mind ) it will probably be hard and will therefore certainly blunt your knives very quickly. Don't do it !
My second thought is, unless you have the time and skill to use a "steel" or "a wet stone", don't attempt it. Instead use a good quality knife sharpener, like my favourite, the Mino Sharp ( was called Shinkansen) which is £25 worth of sheer sharpening heaven and puts that indescribable "wow factor" back into your knife that you thought you'd lost forever. Result? The face of any knife wielding cook has a blissful look of exquist and effortless control restored once again. Not bad for that outlay.
Overlapping Disc sharpeners
And there's one more thing. If you happen to be the owner of one of those little sharpeners that have overlapping discs that you drag the knife across... then please throw it away!. Even if your knives are only half decent, all those discs on that type of sharpener do is to tear the blade. You would quite literally be better off using the back door step or a file to sharpen your knives than one of those things. If you'd like to know more about the pros and cons of different knife sharpeners and sharpening generally then click through to my article on our website where I go into it in more detail.
One off Henckels offer
Now you've educated yourself on how to look after them how about a nice set of Henckel 5 Star knives normally £350 but on offer at £150?
This offer is a bit like last weeks scale offer...it does seem a bit unbelieveable. I can assure you however that it's not. These are genuine Henckels fully forged 5 Star knives and the block contains one of each of the following knives:
- Paring knife 10cm,
- Utility knife 13cm,
- Slicing knife 15cm,
- Chef's knife 20cm,
- Bread knife 20cm,
- Sharpening steel
and a bamboo block with a spare slot for your scissors.
As with the scale offer last week once its gone that's it. So if you're tempted by this offer don't delay. They're in the shops and on the website at www.aolcookshop.co.uk
That's it for now and in fact for the next 2 weeks as we're away now till the middle of August. Let's hope the weather's good and we all have plenty of opportunity for consuming strings of delicious homemade sausages produced effortlessly on the KitchenAid, followed by lashings of Strawberry Brûlée knocked up in a trice in your new Demeyere Saucier and washed down with one of Nicks Cote du Rhones drunk of course from a Riedel Bordeaux glass....perfection? I think so.
I hope you have a good summer holiday whether at home or away.
Kind regards,
Andrew
PS If you haven't yet sent me any feedback yet on good times and ideas for demos for you please do so. |
