On sharp things.

This evening over dinner, conversation turned to firearms. It happens. However, I'm doing my best to transfer the fascination my inner ten-year-old has with firearms and other dangerous things (Dude! You can, like, start a fire with a magnifying glass!) to kitchen equipment. This is generally successful.

*fondles garage sale food mill in vaguely salacious manner*

At any rate, one of my friends, whom I shall now term (and likely get smacked for later) Boxcar Irisher, informed me that she'd had an epiphany that a really sharp knife is about all one needs for cooking. This is, of course, true. Knives and heat are what turn ingredients into food. Sometimes, and I'm looking at you puffer fish, one doesn't even need heat.

It's odd as before I started cooking I did that thing I do wherein I read and read and read about a subject prior to actually undertaking the task at hand. Thus, before Boxcar Ladyfriend and I undertook to learn me how to make food that's, like, edible, I'd read all about the importance of good knives and stainless steel cookware and fond and stock and all manner of good things.

Making pesto with a knife instead of a food processor was a mistake, particularly when one is plagued with the carpal tunnels. Had I read a little more I'd have found out that pesto and pestle share an etymology. Oh well.

There's much to be said for figuring things out, though, and I regret that my book-larnin' got in the way of my own realization of some fundamentals of food prepartion. Oh well. On the upside, next time Boxcar Irisher comes over for dinner, I'm going to encourage her to try out one of the fancified knives Boxcar L. and I keep in the knife block. I suspect it'll make her happy, and that's the point of cooking, no?