We recently welcomed a new member of the household. It is not a pet, although every now and then the Hero thinks it might be nice to get one of those, until we observe various neighbors shivering out in the predawn blackness waiting for their pet to please just hurry up and go already, and using their bare hand to -- yes, I have seen this -- wipe the pet's business end after the, er, business has been concluded.

Our new member is not furry, and it is definitely not cuddly. But it does require far less upkeep than a pet, and has already proven itself a valuable contribution. It is a new chef's knife. 

I already own one chef's knife, but this is a small, sleek Japanese one, and will (according to manufacturer claims) enable me to dispatch kitchen chores, such as cutting up chicken, with as much ease as a samurai dispatches...well, let's leave that particular analogy right there.


In fact the maker of this brand has been fashioning samurai swords for centuries. With the current job outlook for samurais rather dim, however, it seems smart of the company to focus on products, like knives, that have a wider, more practical appeal, such as being used to slice vegetables and, occasionally, one's fingers.

According to the company, the knives are created to balance perfectly in the hand, just as the swords were. And the brochure promises that as the swords did for the samurai, the knives will "bring distinction to the chef." And this is true, if we take "distinction" to mean "bankruptcy." Purchasing a single knife requires the remortgaging of one's house, forgoing extra niceties for a while such as eating, etc.

The brochure gives a hint of why this is so: The individual who initially designed the knives was given a "virtually unlimited budget" to create them. 

"Can I have a virtually unlimited budget to buy more knives?" I asked the Hero.

He may have just been grumpy from having to forgo the nicety of eating for a while.

The new knife and I soon came to an understanding about who is boss in the kitchen. And it isn't me.

There is no mistaking that the company was in the sword business all those years and not, say, the garden hose business. The knife is samurai-sword-sharp. I have already cut myself once, and hopefully there is no more need for the knife to assert its authority.

Yet the metal of the knife is very thin, and I read one of the cautions from the brochure to the Hero.

"I can't whack through bones with this knife," I said.

"That's a relief," he said.

It's probably just as well that our budget has a limit. Monetary restraint may just save some fingernails.