Stuff I Swear By - My Caddie Knife
Thursday, July 16, 2009 at 12:01AM | 4 Comments 
Isn't she a beaut?Sorry, Slap Chop. But you'll never get me to give up my tried and true Japanese vegetable knife.
Yes, I know she once put my then-four-year-old in the hospital for three days**, but missing appendages notwithstanding, this knife rocks.
It slices, it dices, it juliennes, whatever that is. But seriously, I've had this knife, or one similar, for the last 25 years or so. I've only had to replace it once when *someone* thought it would be a good idea to use it for hacking up frozen sausage. Ahem.
It's comfortable in the hand; the shape and weight gives the right amount of leverage to slice with ease, and it stays sharp for a loooong time.
These knives come in carbon and stainless steel. The carbon is easier to sharpen, but the metal is softer which makes it more vulnerable to chipping, and it rusts easily. I now have the stainless one, and like I think I've mentioned, it's quite durable.
If you do any amount of serious cooking, you'll know that your choice of cutlery is a very personal thing. You really have to find the tool that works right for you. When I try to use other knives, it's like putting on a pair of someone else's shoes. This is the one that really does it for me, and by god, if the house catches on fire, I hope I remember to grab it.
Actually, probably not. It's only about $25, and I'm thinking that I should probably at least save the laptop first. Or my children.
You can buy one here...
** Okay. It's like this. I was and still am a firm believer in trusting children. I never had baby gates in front of the stairs, and yes, I let my supervised children use sharp implements. With four boys in 19 years, we've only had 4 emergency room visits: this little incident, a broken collarbone from skateboarding, a concussion, and me breaking a toe while making the bed. Just proves my point that housework is dangerous business. Anyway. We were out in the vegetable garden cutting peas with my Caddie, when the phone rang. I left young and otherwise extremely cautious boy outside with the knife, and when I finished the short phone call, I returned to find young son with his entire pant leg soaked in blood. Bringing him in the house and peeling his pants off, half-expecting to find his leg dangling form a tendon, I found that he had the tiniest puncture wound just under his knee cap. And it had already closed up. (You can see on the knife photo that the edge just by the handle is not rounded like the other corner and can puncture easily.) Seemingly no big deal. However, the bleeding actually continued beneath the skin, becoming quite swollen and extremely painful. So we brought our un-pantsed boy to the ER, where we were met by all manner of disapproving glances and tones, especially after hearing he was not vaccinated, and the real miracle is that Social Services didn't come in and lock us up. After assuring the hospital staff that in spite of our obvious negligence and hippie attire, we were not insane, abusive (oh yeah, I think our 10 month old son also had a black eye from a prior accident) or religious fanatics, and we were willing to keep our son in the hospital for three days to receive intravenous antibiotics and draining of the area around the knee cap (this area is more vulnerable to infection due to lack of blood circulation).
So, that was a grand adventure, to be sure, one made more memorable by the image of the OJ Simpson white Bronco chase on the hospital tv, and the insane July heatwave which made the hospital stay more like a sweet resort vacation as we did not have air conditioning at home.
And I STILL love my knife.
Oh, PS: It was only some years later that my aforementioned otherwise cautious boy admitted that he was swinging the knife around like a machete when the corner caught his knee cap. Boys.... I tell ya.
Reader Comments (4)
Love this post. Love it. You awesome, Mom, you. Thank you for writing about your shtuff. It's what makes us so interesting. And, yeah, I want that knife!
Heidi: Thank you. And glad to hear that the case FOR trying the Caddie outweighed the case against it... :)
A couple years back my husband bought me my first set of *good* knives. All Stainless and simply marvelous compared to the crap I had.
As for the knife injury...
When I was little, my Mom gave me her fillet knife to hold. It was in it's leather sheath, all snapped in. I have no idea what I did, but it came poking out of the blade end (through the sheath). Sliced a nice gash in my finger (that part I definitely remember). So off to the hospital we go.
My husband bought the same brand fillet knife a few years ago and I told him not to let me near it..lol! Come to find out, they must have had numerous complaints about the knife slicing through the end of the sheath... it has a plastic guard inside it now. some 20 years later.
Thinking...Ya know.. your knife is that's a knife I don't have yet. hmmm. ;o)
Amy: Fillet knives are scary. Period. I think they're inhabited by demons and I imagine they can cause damage just sitting in a drawer. So far, I've only managed to take off fingernails with mine. Which I try to keep trimmed anyway, so it worked out well.