My dear Ol' Dad, bless 'im, put catsup on his breakfast eggs, unvaryingly fried over-easy. That totally grossed me out to the max. I'd clunk around clutching my throat like a gasping zombie. Cold red catsup on squiggly white egg albumen. Honestly, what was the man thinking? I asked him, and he answered in his unflappable reliably predictable implacable equanimity,
"SHUT UP! BECAUSE I WANT TO, THAT'S WHY. NOW PISS OFF."
Ah, the memories of his gentle even-handedness come flooding. Warms me 'art, it does. Oddly though, the idea of cold red pico de gallo, Tabasco®, or habanero didn't phase me one single bit. Still, I prefer fresh tomato by a wide margin.
I've taken to charing vegetables because that's what I like. That would probably be grounds for being kicked out of Le Cordon Bleu but I don't care, mon frères. Besides, I have my own knives. I don't need no fancy-pants roll-up set. And Boy, are my knives sharp too. Everybody who comes over and helps notices that. The 8 inch knife used today didn't even put the slightest dent in that tomato up there ↑. Schwing. The weight of the blade itself cut right through. No smashing. It is impressive. The tomato just sits there all cut up into cubes but still in the shape of a tomato wondering what just happened.
Studies prove that wet stones work best when dry. So they should be called dry stones then innit. Neither must they be oiled. Water and oil, it's all nonsense. The wet stone I use has two sides, but I don't bother with the rough side. My knives never need to be straightened out. The knife blade is pushed across the wet stone as if cutting the stone at an angle, not pulled across the stone as if leaving a trail. It's a straight-on motion, not traveling across the blade as if attempting to cover the entire blade with one stroke. Just the width of the stone with each stroke, and try to be even about it by overlapping. The correct angle to hold the blade against the stone is 22˚.
How in the world do you find 22˚?
Fold a square piece of paper diagonally. That's 45°. Fold again. That's 22.5° which is pretty darn close to 22°.
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