We laughed and laughed when we received this “as seen on TV” slicing and, well, grating “miracle product” as a gift. Who would actually use such a crazy thing? Well, it turns out that we would, frequently. It may not dice, but it does slice beautifully – thin and uniform, as well as grating everything from cheese to potatoes to carrots to … you name it. We use it almost daily. If you’re a vegetable eater or a cheese lover, you won’t know how you lived without it. Easy to assemble and disassemble, and it’s dishwasher safe, although you do have to position the parts correctly to maximize water flow and cleaning. You can do a fine or a coarse grate, a straight or a wavy slice. You can even get an ice shaver for making snow cones. It does have some limitations. While it grates all kinds of cheeses (softer cheeses work best when chilled), it can’t slice cheese at all. Nor does it slice onions, celery or other “stringy” vegetables well. It will grate them, though. It slices cucumbers,…

On my 31 comes before 32 list, I set out to take a knife skills class. A few weeks ago, I was puttering around the internet looking for classes and found an Essential Knife Skills class at my local Sur La Table! After all the Thanksgiving preparations & the vacation away with family (don’t get me started on how much energy was put into packing up this small family of three!) I decided to treat myself to a class on a Monday night, all by myself! Have I ever told you that I find chopping food to be fun and relaxing? Is that weird?

When I got into the “class room” there were 20 stations set up for the students. At the front of the class was a massive island full of carrots, peppers, tomatoes, onions, garlic, celery and spinach…all waiting to be cut. There was a huge angled mirror hanging from the ceiling so people in the back could watch our instructor cutting. I think there was also a TV, but I was pretty close so I didn’t even look at it. The instructor stood right behind that mega chopping block at the left hand side of the photo.

The instructor started off by saying,

“Tonight we are going to breakdown what they teach in the first week of culinary school, but we’ll do it in 2 hours.”

Whoa. Deep breath.

Here’s my station. We each got a chef’s knife, a towel to clean our knife, an apron, a packet of knifey information, a nice cutting board and a big bowl to put all of our cut up food scraps in. I left my real camera in my purse, as I had no room on my station. I snapped photos with my cellphone. I think that’s allowed?

No one said anything…but I did get a few weird looks from my instructor.

First we learned how to properly dice potatoes & julienne carrots.

We practiced working on a rhythm with our cuts on celery & then we mastered the perfect chiffonade.

We learned how to properly cut a bell pepper & finely mince a clove of garlic. Garlic presses are frowned upon in the kitchen because they don’t remove the green sprout in the center of the garlic. This little green thing makes garlic very bitter! Garlic tastes best when it’s removed! You can only do that by hand. Fun fact!

I also learned that you’re supposed to position your knife at the top of your cutting board with the blade away from you when it’s not in use. Refer to the bell pepper picture for proper placement.

Accidents happen in the kitchen. It’s best to avoid them. I need to remember this.

My instructor laughed at how many people use a tomato to see how sharp their knife is.

I’m not sure why it’s funny. I found out my knife was pretty damn sharp with my tomato! But hey, he’s a professional with mad knife skillz and an artillery that rivals Dexter’s kill bag. So I’m totally shutting up about that.

This is the proper way to hold a knife when you’re cutting. It’s weird at first, but I’m totally used to it now!

You shouldn’t feel any strain in your fingers when you’re holding a knife this way.

You also need to tuck in your fingers that are holding the item to be chopped. You’ll avoid cutting flesh this way.

And here’s the orange segmenting part. I’ve done this before..You better believe I ate that orange!

Oh…the onion chopping…a room of 20 people chopping onions? Not pretty. The lady next to me had to walk out of the room from tearing up so much. A guy ended up breaking a glass as a result. CHAOS of ONIONS!

Definitely a good idea to save this for the end of the class.

I learned that if you are a contact lens wearer (which I’m not) it’s important to wear goggles while cutting an onion because the sulfur can get stuck in your contact lenses and make your life a living hell for a few hours. This is why people in the army wear glasses instead of contacts. Another instructor anecdote!

I got a name tag on my apron! I like the handwriting of the instructor’s assistant.

I like how she connected the c & y. That “a” is pretty cute too.

I’m a nerd for handwriting.

Overall it was a fun experience. I wish I could have practiced with more stuff in the actual class. We only got one of each thing to chop up and the pace was kind of fast. I learned a great deal about knife sharpening and built my confidence on holding a knife properly. You will never catch me holding a knife the wrong way again!

Sur la Table had lots of information about knives & gave a 10% discount to the students.

We took a break to look at all the knives that they had in their store. The instructor answered a lot of questions & showed us the differences between the knives they sold.

If I didn’t already have a good set of knives at home, the discount would have been useful!

What else did I learn??

Practice makes perfect!

Technical Details – Includes 4-inch paring knife, 6-inch tomato knife, 7-inch santoku knife, 8-inch offset bread knife, 6-inch boning knife, shears, bamboo block, and sharpening steel
– Made from VG-10 stainless steel clad with 16 layers of high-carbon stainless steel on each side
– Patterned, layered surface; stunning look of Damascus steel with added rust resistance
– D-shaped PakkaWood handle; stainless-steel end cap; ergonomic offset stainless-steel bolster
– limited lifetime warranty; made in Seki City, Japan
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 ”Great first impression, terrible wear quality!” 2010-02-15
By K. Campana (West Lafayette, IN)
I purchased this knife set after testing some at a bridal demo. I loved the feel, balance, and smoothness of their cut through tough things like carrots and celery. I cared for the knives as directed – hand wash and towel dry. Did not use sharpener. One month after purchase, I noticed that the tip had broken off one of the knives. I thought it seemed odd and figured it had been dropped at some point. By three months after purchase, 4 of the 6 knives that we has purchased were chipped – some in the middle of the blade! I returned ALL of them (and found several reviews online complaining of the same awful wear quality). I am looking into replacing them with a Global set, which seem to have even better reviews than Shun. The Shun knives make a great first impression but are TERRIBLE in wear quality!!!

 ”Very sharp knives” 2009-12-17
By John Lundgren
I bought this as a gift for some friends a few years back and they love them. Even to this day they rave about how sharp they are (and they do a fair amount of cooking).

 ”Great set that doesn’t include a Chef’s Knife (buy the 10-inch at Amazon)” 2009-02-26
By BTrain (Pioneer Square)
I’ve had these knives for over three years and I love them. One of the key things about this set is that it does not include a chef’s knife. I personally recommend buying the 10-inch knife separately and did a lengthy review of that product there…please read that one. You can get it here: Shun Classic 10-Inch Chef’s Knife This set is perfect for suppluing other knives for those times when you need something like a paring knife or a boning knife.

Why is this set so good?

The knives are super-sharp when you get them. Which is a plus for a short-term, but you will also find that it is easy to maintain a sharp edge, or resharpen them later. Maintaining the edge is important. You get a honing steel as part of the set…use it! You use the honing steel basically whenever you are going to use the knives…I don’t, I use it about every other time usually cause I am lazy and the knife is still very sharp. Once in awhile you will need to sharpen the blades. This is technically different from maintaining and you need to use a wet-stone to do this yourself (again Amazon sells one that works well). If like me you are into cooking you could pay a professional to sharpen the knives periodically. Before you think that is added cost, know that in three years of heavy use I’ve done this once and only for one knife in this set, the santoku due to heavy use. (Note that the tomato knife kicks but but is serrated…for serrated blades you can’t maintain them or sharpen them. That being said, the tomtato knife hasn’t gotten any duller in three years (and I’m part Italian so I eat a lot of tomatoes.)

One potential con for some people. Like all good knives, these are not stainless steel. Stainless is harder to sharpen and maintain so good knives are made out of some sort of softer, mild steel. This is why the knives are so great. One thing you need to take care of is that these are not dishwasher safe and you can not let them air dry or it will get rusty. You have to dry them off after you wash them to prevent that. To me that’s not a big deal.

I’m not a fan of knife blocks since you can’t really see what is in the block like mold or dust or something icky…you also can’t see the blades and have to either remember which slot you put something in or spend a couple of seconds digging through them. Instead try to keep it out somewhere, I recommend a magnetic wall holder (oh yeah, guess what, I bought mine at Amazon and it is awesome). This shows you all the blades and you have quick, easy access to all of them.

One very minor flaw is that the scissors(shears) included in the set are stainless steel and the handles are a soft plastic almost a hard rubber. I’ve actually had them bend on me a few times, but they always go back to normal right away. They are some killer scissors though, just not as killer as the rest of the set…but I didn’t but the set just for the scissors I bought it as a cheap way to fill out the rest of my knife set and it did that wonderfully.

 ”Beware of the dishwasher” 2007-11-18
By Kenneith Wires (WA)
The knives are the best knives that I have purchased. I have the 22pc. set. The only problem and it is not the knives, but the dishwasher will fade the handles. If you value your investment “Hand Wash” you Shuns! I have to purchase more steak knives.

 ”Shun Knives are Beautiful, Elegant, and the Sharpest around” 2005-11-27
By Vyshtia (CA, USA)
Shun knives are beautiful creations period. Since I’m Asian, I love the tradition look and feel of this Japanese knife. I love the beauty of the blade and the dark, polished, Pakkawood handle. The unique “D”-shaped, Wood handles are preferable. The shape fits my hand perfectly, and the wood does not get slippery when wet – providing a very secure hold. The steel is of utmost quality and sharpness. Do not put this blade into any old electric knife sharpener! Electric knife sharpeners are made to put one angle on any blade. These blades come with a 16 degree angle and you don’t want to be changing that angle. There are electric knife sharpeners that can sharpen these knives, but you’ll have to do some research and find out which ones can be a fit with these knives. I prefer to hone with a sharpening steel and manually sharpen with a stone if necessary (and I don’t see it being necessary to touch it to a stone any time soon). The blade is sharp straight off the factory and as Alton Brown says – it’s the sharpest straight out of the factory edge as he’s ever seen.

These knives are more expensive than most, but I think it’s definitely worth it. To have the sharpest, most beautiful knife around – it’s no contest. If you are on a budget, build your collection slowly. It’s been said that there are only 3 knives that are the absolute basics for any kitchen: A 8″ Chef’s Knife (or some kind of similar, large-ish chef’s knife), a Paring Knife, and a Long Serrated blade for cutting bread and larger items. I would add a thin utility knife and a boning knife to that list next. Then I would add those “in-between” sizes as I get more money flow in. Now if you’re buying a whole set like this, you’ll get it all in one shot and it becomes a better deal than pieceing your collection together, one-by-one.

If you plan on spending any time in the kitchen, good kitchen knives are a definite must. Preparation is the bulk of cooking and when you have good knives, it cuts down on the danger of cutting yourself, it adds pleasure to the work, and it cuts down on prep time. Knives are also a very personal choice and it’s best to at least go to a store and try it out for yourself first. Shun Knives are designed by the Japanese, so remember – it’s designed for small hands. This makes it fit most women’s hands perfectly, but I’ve heard of guys with larger hands not like it so much and going back to the German knives. So definitely try it out. It’s a personal thing, it needs to fit you.

Why spend so much money on a knife? Well, if you spend a lot of time in the kitchen, and you almost always have to bust out a knife to prep a meal from scratch – why not use the best? Why spend that time with items that you love and brings you pleasure to use? Many times, it’s the small things that brings us the most pleasure in life, and I consider my Shun knives as one of those things. Having something so beautiful and yet so sharp and perfect – it makes my time cooking just that much more enjoyable.

Another good thing to know is that although the Shun Knives are usually offered for right-handers, you can get these knives for left-handers. You just need to find the guys who stock and sell those ones as they are less known, and less common.

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Buy Shun Classic 8-Piece Knife Set with Bamboo Block

Cook N Home 10-Piece Forged Stainless Handle Knife Set with BlockDate: 2010-03-15T10:31:00.001-07:00

Cook N Home 10-Piece Forged Stainless Handle Knife Set with Block
List Price :$119.99
Price :$75.99
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How are you doing? This day I’ll introduce you about I make this product appeal to young people 10 piece forge stainless handle cutlery in wood block includes 8 inch chef knife,8 inch slicer,8 inch bread knife,6.5 inch santoku 6 inch boning knife,5 inch utility knife,3.5 inch paring knife,SS kitchen scissors,SS handle sharpenning steel and black black Bye Bye
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Technical Details – Premium Quality
– High Carbon Stainless steel material make the edge very fine and sharp
– Stainless steel seamless hollow handle
– Handle shape is ergonomically comfortable
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