Happy Anniversary to me. My wife recently purchased 7″ Santoku by Cutco as a gift and I have been using it quite a bit. I will be honest, it wasn’t exactly on my list. I have been looking for a new kitchen knife, but I was really interested in a carbon steel blade. The reason being is that I wanted a blade that would be easy to sharpen at home.

This Cutco knife is stainless steel and guaranteed for life. They have a lifetime sharpening plan but that supposes that you ship it back to New York. I will more than likely try it at some point in my life but have not had a knife to try.

I am no stranger to the Cutco brand. We have some steak knives and we have some kitchen utensils but nothing that benefits from razor sharpness like kitchen knives. They are definitely high quality and I believe that they will last for a lifetime. No disrespect intended on the brand and I will have years to see if it worth the hype.

When we got married, we got some department, gift store certificates. One on those we spent on a set of knives. They happened to be J. A. Henkel International brand. They are high quality but a step down from the flagship line (not International). They have been good knives and my only problem is that the steel is very hard.

I have spent hours sharpening knives. It is often something I will do in front of a football game or something like that. I can get the knives to a point where they will slice through the sponge when washing if you are not careful. But, it definitely came at a cost of effort. Hence why I was looking for an easier to sharpen knife.

If I knew then what I know now, I am a believer in one quality knife. Ninety-five percent of what I do in the kitchen involves the 8″ chef’s knife. The other knives in my drawer have niche roles. There is one that I pretty much exclusively use for cheese, there is a boning knife that I find doesn’t work that well. The paring knife gets some intricate work, but very little. The only knife I focus on keeping sharp is the chef’s knife.

My first use of this knife came as soon as my wife presented it to me. She got it at Costco and I needed to re-package some pork chops. I slid the tip across the plastic wrap and not only did it cut the plastic but also scored the meat as well. Yes, this thing was sharp out of the box. I was dreaming up dishes that I could put the knife to the test.

The first night, I made some Asian chicken, lettuce wraps. It wasn’t a huge test but it was something. The next night I was planning to make some red Thai curry, now we are talking. After a couple of weeks using it now, I can say that it slices like a house of fire. I think that due to the blade design, the tip is hard to ‘get in there’.

The other thing that I have noticed is that I do a lot of dicing with chef’s knife. I hate to do dishes and so I will take three times longer with the knife than to dirty some other kitchen too. The design of the santoku knife doesn’t have a lot curvature to it. This doesn’t make dicing as easy because that motion is a rocking of the blade.

The biggest culprit for dulling knives is there handling while cleaning. I have to be on guard for sticking in the dishwasher and jamming in the metal drying rack. Once blades get nicked, it takes a lot of sharpening to fix that. That is why I am kind of a Nazi about their handling. Everybody in the house knows it but they don’t spend the hours with the consequences.

End Your Programming Routine: This is my first Japanese style blade. It is a good knife for sure but I am not sure it is the panacea that I was looking for. On slicing heavy meals like a stir fry, I think that it will be a go to. On a dicing heavy meal like tacos, I think that I will stick with the chef’s knife. It is probably a push for balanced prep. Funny as it may seem, this new knife has kind of reignited kitchen creativity. I look forward to more testing.